Beneath the Veil
by RaxusLives
Summary: From the Author of "A Creed Unhinged" comes a softer look at Quarian society, their envirosuits, and the relationship between Commander Shepard and Tali'Zorah. A technical and romantic exploration of Quarian technology and cross-species relationships.
1. Beneath the Veil

**Author's Note: Firstly, as I must always do, I have to ask that you please review. Any thoughts or comments are sincerely appreciated. I need your feedback! Also, if you like this writing style, I would like to make it known that I have a second, darker series entitled 'A Creed Unhinged'. It can be found upon my profile page (just click my 'Raxuslives' name near the top of this page).**

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**Beneath the Veil**

"_**Nemo liber est qui corpori servit."**_

**(No one is free who is a slave to their body.)**

As the door closed, a slight pop could be heard as the air within the chamber pressurized. Soon after a thin white laser began scanning across the room, searching for and addressing any contamination concerns that it noticed.

Standing alone within the decontamination chamber, Tali'Zorah caught herself unconsciously tapping her foot, impatient for the cycle to complete. It wasn't the movement of her leg that caused her to suddenly notice this, but the feeling of the corrugated floor beneath her feet. For the first time in a **_long_ **while, she could actually feel the ground without a layer of fabric between it and her three toes.

Reflecting on that, Tali spread her arms slowly, breathing in deeply. She had to enjoy the freedom while she could. As the quarian people's immune systems had degraded during their exile, they had been forced into environmental suits, for their own protection. Some of the oldest quarians spoke of a time when the envirosuits were only worn during large meetings and parties, or during a pandemic. Tali could hardly believe that. Presently, once a young quarian received their first suit, it could be years before the opportunity presented itself to remove it.

Tali found herself smiling, despite the fact that the decontamination cycle still had nearly five minutes left. She had been _so _excited to receive her first suit, at the age of twelve. Back then, it had represented a sort of liberation from the clean-rooms and bubbles that children were kept in. Tali sighed. As she had grown, that nativity had faded, as she learned what the suits_ really_ were. Glorified prisons. It really hadn't been that bad, being suited upon the Fleet, but her pilgrimage had changed her outlook dramatically. As Tali had explored the galaxy, hunting for something useful to give to the Fleet, she had witnessed exactly what she had been missing.

It had been early on, only a few weeks into her pilgrimage, that Tali had landed on Enaram, a Hanar world nearly covered in water. As she waited for the next commercial transport to arrive, Tali found herself staring out of the window. A young family, an asari, a turian, and their two children, were playing along the beach. Initially, Tali had been confused. One of the children, her face plastered in a smile, was floating in the surf. The quarian girl had naturally assumed that something was wrong, for no quarian child would ever experience any fun from floating in water. But then it had hit her. That child was _swimming_! Looking back on it now, she couldn't really blame herself for taking so long to realize that. The Fleet barely had enough water to sustain it's population, which meant there was never enough for something as frivolous as swimming. More importantly, Tali reminded herself, swimming was inherently boring to any quarian. Most of the fun came from feeling the cool water, the waves. An envirosuit robbed you of such pleasantries.

A red light suddenly turned on, bringing Tali out of her memories, to announce that the chamber cycle was down to one minute. The young quarian was glad, for she was quickly tiring of being cold. Living in a temperature controlled suit for so many years had made her skin sensitive to any sort of climate change. Even though the decontamination chamber was actually tailoring the environment to what her old suit had maintained, the fans cycling the air through the room's filters still created a breeze, giving her a permanent chill.

Looking down, Tali rubbed her hands together, although this caused her shoulders to itch. The simple white gown she wore was uncomfortable, its fabric abrasive from years of repeated sterilization. But she had to admit that it felt good to wear something that wasn't form-fitting. She understood the reasons why the suits hugged every curve, but it just got _annoying_ after awhile. Glancing over her shoulder, Tali caught a glimpse of her old suit, lying within the room she had just left. As she returned her gaze forward, Tali chided herself. She should be happy. It wasn't every day that a quarian got a new envirosuit.

Quarian society was necessarily communal, as the supply of just about everything was short. As such, quarians never owned anything, besides their suit. And with each quarian's suit being custom-made for them, it was unheard of for one to be replaced, except under an emergency. Or, as in Tali's case, when a young quarian returned home from their pilgrimage.

Thinking of her pilgrimage, a deluge of images suddenly stormed into Tali's mind. Dealing with Fist. Meeting Shepard. Fighting husks, mercenaries, geth. Battling Saren. Watching from an escape pod as- "No!" She gasped, shaking the thoughts from her mind. Shepard was gone now. It didn't matter what she had felt, what fear had prevented her from expressing.

The sound of the decontamination chamber's door opening allowed Tali to push those thoughts away. With a sigh, she stepped into the austere room. As with everything in the Fleet, this room served multiple purposes. The battery of equipment pushed against the wall marked the room's original purpose as a surgery area, although Tali knew she was one of three returning quarians to receive a new suit and thus use this room today.

Walking across the floor, Tali again found herself suddenly surprised. The normal sound of walking was absent, her soft feet making far less of a racket then her steel boots had. Regardless, she soon reached the center of the room and the table that stood there, upon which lay her new suit, broken into its twelve component parts.

Tali, her latent curiosity kicking in, picked up the largest piece, what was effectively the torso segment. Comparing it to her old suit, she noticed that the honey-combed design was larger, and the garment on the whole seemed more reflective, more shiny. As she rubbed her fingers across the fabric, she marveled at being able to feel the exterior with her skin, its mildly slick surface passing quickly between her digits. Slowly, after making sure everything was here, and inventing a couple of other ways in which to buy time, Tali sighed. "Going to have to. Better make it sooner." She mumbled, allowing the gown to slip from her shoulders. Standing naked before the suit, she ran her hands, one last time, down her sides, across her hips, reveling in the feeling of skin touching skin. But it was time.

Once again grabbing the torso portion of the suit, Tali bent over, sticking one foot into the hole intended for her neck, and then quickly following it with the other. As she began to pull it up, she quickly found herself tugging. The envirosuit was designed to be incrediblytight, in an effort to prevent any suit breaches from spreading contamination. And even though the 1/10th inch thick fabric was naturally pliable, it still took Tali a couple of minutes to pull it up her legs, where she stopped.

While the Fleet had special sterilized rooms for quarians to relieve themselves of bodily waste, the rest of the galaxy did not. As such, quarian envirosuits were built to retain any waste by sealing it into a "middle" layer in the suit. Luckily for the quarians, their heavily regulated diet created only the smallest amount of purely liquid waste. Tali however, looking into the suit wrapped around her legs, took little solace in that fact. To make sure that the suit correctly captured any waste, a 'Foley Catheter' had to be inserted through her urethra and into her bladder to drain any waste that did developed. Tali, deciding that getting it over with quickly was the best option, inserted the thin, latex tube with as much haste as she could afford. With a quiet grunt she slid it into place, before continuing to pull the suit up, until it covered her from neck to mid-thigh. With a bit of creative flexibility, she was able to move her arms into their correct sleeves, which ended halfway down her bicep.

Spinning slowly in front of the full length mirror, which had been thoughtfully provided, Tali took in her new look. She hadn't noticed it before, but a section of the suit was a lighter, more reflective color. Tali's face flushed a bit as she realized just where that shinier portion fell across. _Leave it to the _**_men_**_ who designed it, _Tali thought, _to make my ass and breasts a bit more shiny._

A final spin brought Tali back around, to once again be facing the table. With the first portion on, she found a bit of the giddy feeling she had felt during her first "suiting" returning. Forcing restraint into her movements, Tali grabbed the second portion of the suit, which she quickly identified as a pair of boots. Examining them closely, she discovered that there was very little that was different from her old suit. As she pulled them up, Tali was only forced to pull with any force when her foot refused to go into the "shoe" part correctly. As the shin guards were a separate component, it was the metal bracing around her Achilles tendon and atop her toes that were impeding her progress. But with a final twist, they fell into place.

In reality, the "shoes" were thigh high, to match up perfectly with where the torso segment ended. Once Tali had drawn both sides up, she suddenly noticed that the component seals, the system that locked the various parts of her suit in an air-tight fashion, had changed from the old design. Her reputation as a crack quarian machinist was safe, however, as she quickly determined that they utilized a friction based system, radically different from the old system of pressure seals and clips. After a couple seconds of fiddling she smoothed out a couple wrinkles that had developed, pleased with the outcome. It was almost impossible to see their connection point, and her shroud would eventually cover it completely.

"And what is next?" The quarian then asked herself, examining the remaining ten pieces. Answering her own question, Tali picked up the pair of gloves, turning them over in another quick inspection. Each pair were elongated, to reach the middle of her bicep, in order to link correctly with the torso portion of the suit. Placing one of the gloves back upon the table, Tali found herself rather impressed by the amount of articulation that the glove's three fingers had, despite each having a protective metal layer that stopped just short of the backside of what would be her palm. Before she placed the first glove on, Tali squeezed upon the wrist section of the glove she held, feeling a cylindrical appendage jutting out, into the interior, of each glove. The quarian's face shifted into a visage of discomfort.

Each glove, on the inside of the wrist, featured a thin, malleable tube. Tali had never enjoyed having what were essentially a permanent hypodermic needle in each wrist. Especially because, during combat, they occasionally fell out. A simple program on her omnitool automatically reinserted the needle, but she had never grown to like it. Holding one of her wrists up to the light, Tali frowned at the various track marks that marred her skin. Despite the use of pain relievers, she had yet to meet a quarian who didn't have sore wrists.

Knowing it was inevitable, Tali held her left arm above her head, before using her right hand to slip the first glove on. As she slowly pulled it down, the young quarian felt a gentle prick as the needle pierced her skin, followed seconds later by a single trail of blood rolling down her arm. As the end of the glove reached her bicep, where her the torso section ended, she again found that friction seals had replaced the old system of clips. _It is a more efficient system, _Tali mused as she repeated the action with her other hand. Soon, both gloves were on, and she found herself sealed in from the tips of her toes, to the top of her neck.

She sighed, running her hands slowly along her sides and hips, mimicking the path she had used before putting on the suit. _It just wasn't the same. _Even if she utilized the nerve stimulators that came standard on any quarian envirosuit, it just couldn't compare with the feeling that came when skin touched skin. Human psychologists had recently put forward a theory, linking their race's "phantom limb syndrome" with the quarian experience of, despite the stimulators operating at peak efficiency, something still being "wrong" when touching something. Being outside Tali's field of expertise, she didn't really know what to make of that. Instead, she continuing suiting up.

The next part of her suit was the gold neck "brace", which she promptly picked up. This was the first piece of her suit that was really included just for her aesthetic tastes. While the essential portions of quarian envirosuits were dictated by necessity, most quarians modified their suits in various ways, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Tali, in partially designing her new suit, had settled on a purple and gold color scheme. Shepard had once mentioned that he liked those colors the most, although Tali quickly pressed that thought from her mind. _Thinking of him won't bring him back, Tali! _She kept repeating it in her mind, but her cognitive processes refused to acknowledge the fact.

Acting quickly, Tali began placing the brace upon her neck, the fine movements that act required succeeding in driving the thoughts of Shepard from her mind. As her attention moved to more benign thoughts, the quarian girl reflected on the term "neck brace". In reality, the golden rings were purely for show, as evident in the fact that the lowest rings were unnecessary. It had been her father's longtime friend, Shala'Raan who had suggested letting the lowest loops hang down. Thinking of that, Tali again found herself blushing. If she remembered right, Shala had smiled and noted that "The gold coloring of the lowest rings will draw everyone's eyes, to your... er.. ehem!"

Allowing her smirk to fade, Tali focused on closing the last golden ring, which reached to just under her chin. Again checking herself in the mirror, the quarian fiddled a bit with the lowest hanging rings, making sure they were evenly spaced. Pleased with the outcome, she then looked upon the table for the fifth, and most important portion of her ensemble, the helmet.

If the envirosuit was a marvel of engineering, the helmet could be seen as its centerpiece. While only weighing a couple pounds, the helmet contained an incredibly complex air filter, voice modulator, food pump, olfactory emulator, and the mainframe which regulated all of the suit's functions. Currently, her helmet was broken into it's three separate pieces, the chin and side part, the rear portion, and the faceplate. Leaving the faceplate for later, Tali grabbed the other two components, turning them over slowly. The rear piece, which housed the mainframe and air filters, had two short tubes projecting from a central location, where the base of her spinal cord would soon rest. These tubes, one for passing air to her mouth, the other for removing it to the filter, connected to the chin part of her helmet, to allow the triple set of filters the helmet provided to work correctly.

Tali gave special attention to the chin of the mask, which she knew would soon be what most people recognized as part of her "face". She was quite happy to see that the electronics that drove the circular light which blinked when she spoke had been made even smaller since her old suit. This allowed for a larger olfactory array, which produced any smells that she would be able to perceive, once fully sealed in. For the rest of the sentient universe, any sort of natural smell was produced by their olfactory glands being stimulated by chemical stimuli. To a quarian however, because of their weakened immune systems, this tiny amount of foreign material could kill them. As such, the olfactory emulator attempted to replicate any odors it encountered, and then passed them to the wearer.

Again falling into her memories, the young quarian, when she had been a child, had never known what she had been missing. Walking through the Rayya after she had been suited, Tali had found something amiss. It had taken her a few days to realize that the helmet was in no way capable of replicating all of the smells she experienced throughout the day. That thought piqued a hint of sullen sadness within her. Being inside the suit, there had been so much she had missed throughout her life. A quick image of an embarrassed Shepard holding a flower to her mask, after she admitted that her suit couldn't replicate the smell, flashed before her eyes, before she pushed it from her mind.

Her quick reaction didn't stop a single tear from welling in her right eye, as she positioned the helmet segments around her head, before clipping them tight. Work had always succeeded in driving out the emotions that occasionally threatened to overwhelm her. She had to admit, though, that as time passed it was getting easier. The days right after the destruction of the Normandy had been hard, with just about everything reminding her of Shepard.

Screwing and locking the helmet onto her head securely, Tali suddenly found herself at ease. The view she held now, with the sides and bottom of her mask creeping into her peripheral vision, was so familiar. Taking a second, the quarian looked down, pursing her lips together. After a few seconds, she began rocking her head slightly, indulging in the feeling of the room's air passing against her forehead. She had intended to put on the helmet's visor next, but instead found herself reaching for the shin guards. _ It will be a cold day in hell before I put that mask on before I have to_, she declared to herself.

Of all the pieces of her new suit, the shin guards were the only portion that had remained wholly unchanged. Running from the top of her ankle to just above the knee, the metal guards wrapped around her recurved legs. They were quite easy to move into position, but difficultly arose when she went to fix them into place. Just above each ankle, Tali had a hole drilled directly through each tibia and its surrounding flesh. She had gotten them upon receiving her first suit, their purpose being to act as a "hardpoint" upon her body, in a way to anchor the suit _directly_ to her person. Tali had been unlucky enough to be one of the last group of quarians to undergo the surgery, as those who now received their first suits simply had an extra bracing mount wrapped upon their leg, which provided the same amount of support.

That is not to say that there was inherently anything wrong with the procedure, for the ½ inch holes, once properly coated with carbonic fiber, were incapable of being infected or injured. It just hurt like _hell _to receive them in the first place. Especially when you underwent the surgery without any anesthetics or painkillers. Her father had convinced her to do so, because "it was a Zorah family tradition". It had taken her a couple of weeks until she talked to him again.

Opening the small ports her suit had installed for just such a purpose, Tali inserted a metal bolt through the hole in each of her legs. She then took a couple seconds to make sure it was secure, and that the seals that prevented the hole from compromising suit integrity were connected correctly, before standing back up to her full height.

While the shin guards were the most unchanged, the next piece of her suit was the most familiar, at least in Tali's opinion. Slowly, the quarian girl picked up the long piece of purple fabric, silently wishing she had touched it before placing her gloves on. It was her veil, or shroud. No one that Tali asked had been able to tell her exactly why her people wore such a garment, but its acceptance was universal. Shala had said once that it was a symbol of modesty and discretion, least the quarian people forget all that they had lost. Tali couldn't have said if Shala was right, but she had to admit that this particular veil was beautiful.

It was actually the same one she had worn during her pilgrimage, only modified in a couple of ways. From the "hood", the veil ran down into a squarish section that would eventually lie on her back, until it ended in two parallel strips, about three and a half feet long.

Eager to see how it looked upon her, Tali began by placing the hood upon her head. Unlike the old design, which had been a rather tight fitting garment, this hood was enlarged, allowing her to drape it around her neck. Seeing a picture of a cobra, from Earth, had given her the idea. Once the hood was atop her helmet, she locked it into place by utilizing a couple of hooks. She then let the rest of the veil fall behind her, like a cape, while making sure that the portion that fell between her breasts and shoulders aligned correctly. This movement caused the squarish back portion to fall correctly by itself, allowing Tali to grab the two parallel strips that hung almost to the floor. With these strips, she wrapped them back around her hips, crossing them at her belt line. From there, she wrapped them back around her thighs, before locking the ends together, on the interior seam line, where no one would notice it. After a couple moments of stretching and bending, to make sure that everything was relatively secure, Tali looked into the mirror.

It was better than she had expected. The golden highlights along the running edge of the section of the veil that crossed her chest matched perfectly with the rings upon her neck. Overall, Tali determined that the look was... sophisticated, with just a hint of flirt. After a couple more seconds of self-examination, she once again turned towards the table, intent on permanently securing the veil. To do so, she picked up a series of straps, all of which were designed to do just that that.

The entire ensemble was one piece, forcing Tali to slid the straps over her head. It consisted of three straps that formed a brace along her back, before circling her upper torso, and a singular strap that worked itself up to just below her throat, before circling around like its lower brethren. Twice below her neck, and then four times upon her back, the straps linked to her veil, via what was effectively a stylized clasp.

Pragmatically, Tali tightened the lowest straps first, breathing in deeply as she did so. It was currently "in-style" for the straps to be as tight as possible, even though they restricted breathing by a fair degree. Luck had shined on Tali in that regard, for she had always worn her's tight. By now, her diaphragm had gotten used to the restriction, and she barely noticed the change in her breathing pattern that occurred as she finished pulling on the straps, before securing them with the clips that adorned them.

With a quick flip of her nimble fingers, the quarian then secured the strap that circled her neck. Another quick check of the mirror confirmed that everything was as it should be. The next portion of her suit were the bulkiest: four attachments, all of which were intended for her arms. She started with the pair that were fashioned to attach to her biceps, just above the elbow. Each black "pack" had three, externally visible segments. Each of these segments held a different fluid, ready at any time to be piped down to Tali's wrists, and into her bloodstream. One segment held morphine, another medigel, and yet another held adrenaline. The remaining three all held antibiotics.

Tali was careful to attach each pack's three respective "export" hoses carefully. Any breaches there could transmit foreign material throughout her bloodstream. Once they were in place, the young quarian grabbed the other two "packs", which she slipped onto the backside of her wrists. Each of these wrist packs had eleven small ridges upon them, which served the same purpose as the larger repositories that now graced her upper arms. These smaller packs, however, were designed to be changed frequently, allowing Tali to change the chemical compliment she traveled with to suit her particular needs. Once again, she was careful to properly secure the "export" tubes that extruded from the wrist packs, the fear of infection driving her to triple check her work.

Finally satisfied, Tali was happy to see that she was almost done, for the table that had held her suit was now mostly empty, with only her belt, knife, and visor remaining upon it. She grabbed the belt first. Designed to resemble the straps now adorning her chest, the belt was a simple affair. Tali looped it around her waist, making sure that the drooping portion that acted as a pistol holster was correctly placed upon her left side.

She then picked up her knife, the same that she had taken upon her pilgrimage. Two simple straps attached it to her left shin guard, although she accidentally tapped her ankle as she secured it. The steel bolt there shifted within her leg, causing a stab of pain to run up her spine. That was another reason why the quarians outfitted with the ankle-bolts were reluctant to remove their suits; the bolts shifted whenever touched for about a week after they were replaced. And it _hurt_.

The pain receded quickly however, allowing Tali to once again turn to face the mirror. Eleven pieces were now it place, leaving a solitary portion of her suit unaffixed. The facemask. Picking up the purple mask, Tali found herself hesitating, contemplating on what putting it on would mean, for she was conflicted on that regard. One side of her welcomed the chance to return to the suit's regulated environment, it's familiar cling, the enhanced vision and hearing the helmet rewarded. But a larger, far more vocal portion of her consciousness bemoaned the loss of smell, of feeling, of _freedom_ that the suit forced upon her.

From her travels abroad, Tali had also learned that the suit was a potent symbol. The other species of the galaxy routinely failed to see the quarian behind the mask, instead labeling her people with a simple set of stereotypes and accusations. Vagrant. Thief. Scavenger. The words hurt. Tali had once read that the first step that sentient beings went through to rationalize the persecution of a group was to objectify or bestialize their targets. The average quarian, completely covered in their suit, with only their eyes showing any sort of life, had accomplished this step themselves.

But there was nothing she could do about. As much as she hated the filters, the seals, the suit itself, she _needed it_. With that conviction, Tali raised the visor to her face, taking the chance to gulp in one last deep draught of unfiltered air. Sliding the mask into place, two clicks sounded as each side was locked in. The quarian girl hesitated in breathing now, a sadness welling inside her. But as the suit was a necessity, so was breathing. Slowly she exhaled her last breath of fresh air, the filters in her suit noiseless as the carbon dioxide passed through them, out of the port just beneath her speaking light. Her first inhalation was hard, like sucking through a straw. Each subsequent one, however, became easier as the filters cleared themselves for operation.

Tali then raised her left arm, activating her omnitool. A couple button presses had the device successfully synched with her suit, after which she then began activating the suit's various subsystems. The first was a series of "heads-up-displays" that alighted before her eyes upon her visor. She shifted her focus to these, while still typing on her omnitool. Secondly, she ran a suit diagnostic, checking to make sure that all of the seals were correctly air-tight. They were. Next she fired up the suit's environmental systems, tuning them to be a little bit warmer than usual, to draw out the chill she had carried since first removing her old suit. After that, only the biometrics remained. Turning them on, Tali moaned a bit as her suit automatically dumped a large dose of antibiotics into her bloodstream, followed by a small hit of morphine to ease the accompanying discomfort. It was the second drug that elicited the moan, its sweet feeling of icy bliss racing throughout her body, leaving her a bit lightheaded. Quickly, however, that feeling faded as her body began to digest the antibiotics it had just been exposed to, thus diluting the morphine.

Falling from the brief high, Tali, for the last time, examined herself in the mirror. In an attempt to remove the despondent feeling of sadness that was building within her, she placed her hands upon her hips, and forced a smile onto her face. "The suits a prison, sure," She said to herself, "but I must admit that I look good in it!"

Only silence greeted her remark. After a short while she let her hands drop back to her sides as her shoulders slumped in depression. _Well_, she thought, _that didn't cheer me up. _Letting loose a final sigh, she turned her back to the mirror. As she walked towards the decontamination chamber, Tali raised her omnitool again, hitting a single button. Her purple facemask, which before had been relatively clear, quickly clouded, until most of her face was obscured. The chamber door opened with a sharp tug, and Tali stepped inside. She was thankful for the facemask polarization. No one would see the tears running slowly down her cheeks.

"_Damn these suits..."_

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**Continues in Chapter 2: Fear, Lust, and New Experiences**_

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_**Author's Note: This piece actually arose as a side project during my attempts to build a blueprint for how, scientifically, the quarian envirosuits work. This was originally intended to be a Oneshot, but the overwhelming support for this story convinced me to flesh it out. It, once completed will be Five Chapters and an Epilogue long. Hope you liked it! (PLEASE REVIEW)**


	2. Fear, Lust, and New Experiences

**Author's Note: As always, please review. I live off 'em. Seriously. Secondly, I must apologize for how long it took me to work this out. Hope it's worth the wait!**

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**Chapter Two: Fear, Lust, and New Experiences**

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

The sound of Tali's own heart beating reverberated inside her helmet. She had fought Geth, mercenaries, even a Reaper. None of that had brought upon her the same kind of fear she felt now. "Oh, Keelah." She mumbled for what had to be the hundredth time, as she watched the elevator's numbers slowly tick downwards. Her hands began wringing together.

Only a few hours lay between the Normandy and the Omega 4 relay. Tali was unsure of what waited on the other side. Well, that wasn't true. No one was saying it, but everyone knew the expectations; It was most probably a suicide mission. But Tali had known the stakes when she signed on. If they stopped the collectors, they would put a massive dent into the Reaper's plans. And that was all good.

What Tali hadn't known upon retaking her place aboard the Normandy was that she would be given the opportunity to express her feelings for Shepard. And, to her surprise, that Shepard would admit that he felt the same way. A moment of unbridled joy swept through her, thinking of that conversation.

Anxiety had clawed at her though. Tali grimaced, remembering how foolish she had sounded as she tripped over her words, trying to tell Shepard how it wouldn't work; she could get sick, endanger the mission. But Shepard seemed to have been expecting that. He had said just what she needed to hear, just what she had secretly wanted him to say. That he wanted her, and that they would make it work.

And that was why Tali stood inside the Normandy's elevator, watching as it slowly worked it's way up to Shepard's cabin, her heart nearly erupting from her chest. The massive dose of antibiotics that coursed through her veins would combat any foreign material, but it didn't do anything to her anxiety. She had never shown her face to anyone. _What would Shepard think? What would he say? What would he-_

Her thoughts cut off suddenly as a small chime accompanied the elevator's arrival on the top floor. The door slowly opened. "Oh. Shit." She mumbled, stepping timidly out of the elevator. Had her mind not been so overloaded with fear, she would have probably have laughed at that choice of profanity. Shepard had taught it to her.

Now, only a half inch door of metal and plastic stood between her and him. _I have to do it. I can't do it. I need to do it. I can't do it. I __**want**__ to do it... _The debate that raged inside her mind kept her firmly planted outside the door. Tali understood that she loved him. She understood that he loved her. _Then what else do I need to do? _She chided herself._ Just walk in there and..._

Unconsciously following her own advice, Tali was shocked to find herself walking towards the door. It opened with a slight swoosh. The fear and anxiety that had plagued her turned into panic as Shepard came into view. Her suit was blinking some kind of warning about her heart-rate, but she couldn't bring herself to focus on it. Shepard was turning towards her. "Tali?" He murmured, an eyebrow raising.

There was no backing out now, she finally decided. She just had to go with it. "D-Do you remember how w-we talked before about what I could do to... to... to prepare for..." She was mumbling, stuttering, stammering. _Focus, dammit!_

Shepard only smiled. He set down the datapad he had been reading before taking a couple steps closer to her. "Yes, I remember."

That smile disarmed her fear, at least a bit. She found her herself blinking away a tear. Of happiness or fear she could not tell. Shaking her head slowly, Tali tried to remember what she had wanted to say, what she had practiced down in Engineering, with her voice modulator turned off.

"I-I've taken some... No. Q-Quite a few antibiotics as well as some herbal supplements to bolster my immune system." She matched Shepard's couple of steps, bringing her directly in front of him. "And I was going to bring some music, but I didn't know what you would like. Or some food, b-but we don't eat the same kind of..." She stopped, lowering her gaze so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes. "I'm babbling like an idiot."

Shepard once again smiled as he put a hand upon each of her shoulders. The feeling, even through the suit, was electric. "Its fine, Tali. It really is. You don't need to impress me."

The young quarian found herself being drawn by Shepard towards his bed, where they sat on the end. She just wanted to enjoy the moment, to revel in the the feelings that welled inside her. But she couldn't stop talking. "I-I just don't want to... I want this to work. I've thought this over. I've minimized the risks. But-but I'm still nervous."

Taking her hand in his, he winked at her. "Nervous? I haven't noticed."

The sarcasm wasn't lost on her, but she was just too tense to acknowledge it. "Yes. Nervous. And that always makes me talk too much. It's a defense mechanism. And it's stupid. And..." Her mind registered that Shepard was moving closer to her, but she couldn't stop talking. "People who... People who just see the helmet can't see my e-expression, so I have to make it clear... what I'm..." Now Shepard was reaching towards her face, a hand landing on each side of her mask. _What was he doing? _The sound of her faceplate's pressure seals disengaging as he unsealed it answered that question. The statement she had been making died as she whispered it's abrupt end: "...feeling...", before watching as Shepard placed her faceplate upon the bed.

He wasn't looking at a suit. He wasn't looking at a faceplate. He wasn't looking at a haze of purple polarization. Shepard was looking at her _face_, and he was _**smiling**_. That realization ignited the fire that had been within Tali since she had agreed to meet him here. And that fire emboldened her. With a bit of a yelp, she found herself pushing Shepard back upon the bed, before she pounced upon him. _Pounced? _Her subconscious laughed, _Where did that come from?_

There was no time to answer the questions her subconscious posed, however, as Shepard drew her in closer. He went for a kiss, but the bottom portion of her mask prevented him from reaching her mouth. With a slight shrug, he placed it upon her forehead. To her embarrassment, she found herself tilting back her head as she moaned in ecstasy. It wasn't really that the kiss had been anything spectacular, or that Shepard had some extraordinarily intoxicating effect on her. But Tali had been within her suit for around two years, since she had first received it upon completing her pilgrimage. She had spent two years cut off from the world outside her suit, feeling only through fabric, smelling only through an olfactory array, seeing only through a mask. Now, though, she was feeling the fresh air upon her face, smelling for the first time Shepard's actual scent, feeling for the first time his, or anyone's for that matter, lips brush against her forehead. She just couldn't help the moan.

The human beneath her pulled back, another smile spreading across his face. "You seem to be getting more out of this then me." He said, gesturing towards a thin red cut that had appeared beneath his left eye.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Shepard. I-I.." Tali was breathing deeply, finding it hard not to revel in the feelings that raged within her body. Her mask's chin, which ended in a sharp point on each side, must have scrapped across his face when she had leaned her head back. "...I really need to get this suit off." She finally finished, before sliding off of him. "It will only take about ten minutes. You can wait here while I use your bathroom-"

He interjected quickly: "Can I help, Tali?"

The question hung in the air for a few seconds as she found herself at a loss for words. Throughout her life, Tali reckoned that she had taken off her suit completely only a half dozen times. To have Shepard help her? The idea was _thrilling_. But a question remained that had to be answered. The young quarian had already turned her back to him, forcing her to look over her shoulder to respond. "Why would you want to?"

Shepard returned to a sitting position on the end of the bed before answering her. "To tell you the truth? I'm curious as to how quarian suits work. And I want to learn, really I do."

Tali smiled, and for the first time realized that Shepard was capable of seeing it. "You seemed to know how to remove my mask just fine..." She replied, a playful inflection sliding into her voice as she turned back towards Shepard.

The human sitting upon the bed only shrugged. "You did a little research on how we could make this work. I did a little research on how _you_ work. But there is almost nothing on the Extranet about your people."

"Well, there is always Fornax." Tali giggled, which elicited a laugh from Shepard. "But, to be serious," she continued, "quarians don't usually talk about such things. And with the Fleet off of the extranet grid? I guess it makes sense you couldn't find much. Plus... Well... I've always kind of wished... Because you never, um, before now I mean, saw my face. That you would..." The anxiety was slipping back in as she began wringing her hands together. _How am I supposed to say this without sounding like a... whore?_

Shepard alleviated those fears as he stood up, moving to hold her hands in his to stop their nervous movement. "How about we stop sitting around and just do this? Where do we start?"

"W-Well, um, you..." The feeling of Shepard's hands against hers, even though her gloves still remained between their skin, helped her confidence return. "The belt." She finally blurted out, fighting desperately to remain calm. Her anxiety was now mixing with lust, diluting her fears. "E-Easy things first. The belt, for starters."

Allowing one hand to remain gripping hers, Shepard moved his other slowly down her waist, to the belt buckle. With a soft click it came undone before silently sliding down her legs until it hit the floor. Tali closed her eyes as Shepard slowly slid his hand farther down her legs, focusing on the left one. Two more clicks followed by a slight clang announced that the knife affixed to her shin was off. As Shepard rose again to his full height, he waited for a couple seconds before tapping the chin of Tali's helmet. "You still with me Tali?" He asked quietly.

Her eyes popped back open as the sound of his tapping echoed in her head. As soon as she realized that her breathing had again become heavy with passion, embarrassment flashed across her face. "I'm sorry, Shepard. Its been two years since I have been out of this suit. And no one-_no one_-has touched me with such..."

Shepard couldn't help but smile at her demure response to his question. "You need to stop apologizing. We both want this, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying it. If I was in a suit like that for so long? Well, I sure as hell would be more than a bit sexually repressed."

"Shepard!" She gasped, her face blushing. And while there was more than a bit of truth in his statement, Tali couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it. Instead, she backed away from the human, raising her left hand as she activated her omnitool in an attempt to change the flow of the conversation. "I almost forgot to turn off the suit's subsystems. Just one second." She punched a few keys, turning off the biometrics, air filters, and other such secondary subroutines. "There." She mumbled, before reaching with her right hand to begin unhooking the lowermost of the two black packs that adorned her left arm.

Shepard again moved closer to her, raising one of his hands to meet hers. "Here. Let me help you with..." He cocked his sideways as the pack around her lower arm came off, although eleven small hoses still connected to to her suit. "Whats with the tubes?"

"Why, these ridges are little houses, where the insects that live within my bloodstream reproduce." The silence that followed her statement was absolute. It was the kind of silence that only followed something incredibly morbid. After a few seconds, Tali couldn't stop herself as a laugh escaped her lips. "I'm kidding, Shepard. Just kidding!"

The look of what could only have been described as horror that had plastered the human's face contorted quickly into a smile. "Well," he laughed, "I guess I do deserve that after the 'sexually repressed' comment I made." Watching Tali carefully unhook the first of the small hoses as she nodded in agreement, Shepard attempted to mimic the action. Unfortunately, the length of the hoses prevented the black packs from being lifted up very high, and the resultant clearance was just to small for him to stick his fingers in.

Shooing his hands away, Tali grinned. "It was designed for three fingered hands. If you want to help, you should be able to reach the tubes that connect to the packs on my upper arms. They're bigger." A soldier's hands have nowhere near the same dexterity as a quarian machinist, and it showed as Tali had removed both of the lower packs before Shepard had even managed to unhook one of the upper ones.

Fiddling with the last tube on her right side, the human finally asked the question that had been floating in his mind. "What are these for, anyway? I always thought they were just for show. Or storing things... because you lack pockets."

Turning over one of the black packs, Tali flicked one of the hoses. "They _are_ for storage. Except they're for chemicals or fluids. Each tube runs to a separate reservoir. The upper ones that you are working on are filled with antibiotics, adrenaline... basically the essentials. The lower ones with eleven different pouches I can change in and out and fill with anything."

Shepard nodded, soaking in the information. "You know," he pointed out, "the hardsuits we wear kind of have the same thing. They aren't... ahem... as _snug_ as your suit, of course."

She giggled, before reaching behind her back. "Nice one, Donnelly. Now, are you going to help me, or are you going to stand over there making stupid jokes?"

Chuckling, Shepard walked behind her, where her hands were trying unsuccessfully to unlatch the four clips that held the straps that wrapped her torso in place. It took the seasoned soldier a couple seconds to realize that, despite their elegance, they were simply locking clasps. A grunt slipped from between his lips as he torqued the first one open. "Jesus, Tali. Could these be any tighter?"

"No. Not really. Its..." Her face blushed a bit as she searched for the right words. Within quarian culture it was considered overtly lavish, and thus shameful, to integrate anything into an envirosuit that wasn't utilitarian in nature. That stigma, however, did not stop_ everyone_ from engaging in the practice. From tight straps to fancy veils to laser-etched faceplates, it was hard to find a quarian that hadn't overtly garnished their suit it some way. It was just that no one ever talked about it. Tali considered explaining this to Shepard, but she stopped herself. It sounded like a foolish system, even to her. Instead, she told the truth. "...Its kind of in-fashion right now to have them rather tight. Cuts off breathing a bit, but I have gotten used to it."

Shepard's left eye brow rose slightly. "Well, I guess some things are true across species. Kind of like a human corset, then. I remember Ash once mentioning one of her sisters was into that kind of stuff."

"Really?" The quarian mumbled as she glanced at him over her shoulder, which prompted Shepard to nod in concurrence as he fought with the last of the clasps. She had expected him to at least tease her for something so silly. It was a foolish custom even to her own people. _But humans did it too? I never really imagined human women would have much in common with myself,_ she thought,_ I've always thought they were so... exotic. __**Alien**__._

A final click announced that Shepard had finally freed the last of the clasps, and the resultant deep inhalation it afforded turned Tali's thoughts back to the work of desuiting. Her nimble fingers darted to just beneath her neck where she undid the last two fasteners that resided there. Once she succeeded, she allowed the whole ensemble to slid to the floor, where it joined the other parts of her suit. But Shepard picked it back up, and held it to the light.

"I can't imagine wearing this all the time. I've seen you work your way into the interior of cramped engines. This doesn't hinder you?"

Tali shook her head, smiling a bit as fresh air passed by the quarian equivalent of her ears. "Like I said, you get used to it. Plus," She raised her hands to place them upon where the straps had been, their path still marked by small indents in the suit's fabric. "They are up around the rib cage, not around the waist. I-I don't think I would be able to bend over if they were around my waist. Anyway..." Taking the straps from Shepard, she took one of the garnished clasps and held it close to the other. They snapped together with a click. "The four clasps on my back are magnetic, too. So I can put on a magnetic backpack, or whatever else I want. Kind of nice, actually."

The human helped her pull apart the two magnetized clasps, which were stronger than she had remembered, before shrugging. "I'd prefer pockets... but I guess they would be kind of annoying if I had to wear them twenty four-seven." He glanced over to the clock upon his desk. "Whats next?"

Tali had followed his gaze, and the time alarmed her. "Oh, Shepard, I must be boring you! This is taking far longer than it does if I just do it. With the explaining and... maybe I should just hurry up and take it all off my-"

Shepard held up a hand, which succeeded in silencing her mid-sentence. "I told you to stop apologizing, and to stop worrying. We have plenty of time before we hit the Relay. And I want this to be at your pace."

The human that stood in front of her had always seemed capable of quieting her fears, and he proved it again. With a slight nod, Tali slowly grabbed each of his hands, allowing her three fingers to play between his five. "Yes, _Commander_." She mumbled in a impish manner, as she guided his hands up, towards her head. "And to answer your question, the veil is next. There should be some clips on top of my helmet that secure it there."

With how infrequently she took it off, even Tali had some trouble actually locating the clips. But a couple seconds of awkward fumbling succeeded in unhooking them all. Without a sound, her veil fell upon her shoulders. Tali finally noticed that she had been holding her breath throughout the endeavor, and thus released it.

"You okay, Tali?" Shepard asked, looking into her eyes as he slowly worked the veil off of her shoulders, and down her back.

"Its..." Tali let the sentence die, her mind searching for some way to explain it. Quarian culture, despite not knowing exactly why they wore veils, held the garments in high regard. It was considered sacrilegious to remove it in front of anyone, except your mother, who actually gave you your first veil. Some of the oldest generations considered the veils to be signs of purity and chastity, although Tali's views was more inline with her generation, in that it was simply a tradition best left unbroken. But the potent symbolism the veil possessed still made Shepard's slow removal of it... _exciting_, to the young quarian. _I know Father wouldn't approve, _she concluded.

"Just thinking..." Was the best she could finally murmur, as Shepard's hands distracted her, and only worked to further what would have been her father's disapproval. He was working his way down her waist, and then down her legs. As her veil ended by wrapping around each of her thighs, he was obliged to follow their path. Tali's eyes rolled back as he undid the fasteners that held each side in place. If his hands roamed a bit more than necessary, Tali wouldn't have been in any sort of condition to notice. No matter the type, any contact with Shepard, even through the suit, was exhilarating to her.

And then it was over, and Shepard was again standing in front of her, the veil draped over one of his arms. It took Tali a couple of seconds to recover, and upon seeing the last vestiges of a smirk upon his face, her face blossomed into a blush as blood rushed to her cheeks. She opened her mouth, trying to explain, to quantify the feelings that seemed to suddenly erupt whenever they touched. But nothing came out.

The chin of her mask prevented Shepard from reaching out and closing her gaping mouth, but his mimicking of the action had the same effect. She searched his eyes, looking for disapproval, for disdain, for anything except the endearing solace their light blue depths usually contained. She found only acceptance. "This is all new for you, Tali. I understand that. How many times do I have to repeat myself?" He asked, "There is no reason to be ashamed of the feelings you have. I have them too. But this is your night. You deserve it."

Her words finally returning, Tali answered. "I need to thank you. I need-"

"You need to get that suit off. I haven't done anything, really, yet." Shepard interrupted her, before once again dropping to one knee. He began pulling slowly upon one of her metallic shin guards, but it wouldn't budge. He returned his gaze to her face, a puzzled look accompanying it.

Tali silently lamented that Shepard had to find out about the bolts that anchored the shin-guards directly to her legs. It was rather common throughout the galaxy to augment physical capabilities by various kinds of surgeries, but the intent was always to improve something without displaying any external change. A ½ inch hole drilled through each ankle was, once noticed,_ incredibly_ visible, and as such the quarian people rarely advertised that every quarian had a pair. _Except the youngest generations_, Tali clarified to herself. _Of course Father had to push me to get the holes a bit early, just before they discontinued the process._ She hated to think of her Father, especially now that he was no longer alive, for Tali had loved him as much as any daughter could love a man unable to speak a single sentence; a sentence she had so desperately craved. '_I love you, Tali'._

A sudden pull on the bolt that passed through her right ankle ripped the quarian girl back into the present, as the steel piece shifted within her leg. Shepard, seeing that Tali wasn't about to answer his questioning look, had returned his attention to the shin guards. His trained eyes had quickly identified the reason as to why the guards remained so indignantly stuck, and he had taken the quickest action for removing them. Unfortunately, the bolts were meant to be slowly removed, as the rifling within the hole that helped hold the bolt in place also could shift under sudden pressure. The abrupt yank he administered actually didn't hurt Tali, as the carbonic coating that lined the hole was rather tough, but the flesh that surrounded it shifted in a most disconcerting way. _"Bosh'tet!"_ She yelled, pulling her leg away from Shepard's hands. "What are you doing?"

It was now Shepard's turn to be embarrassed. "Oh, god, Tali. I'm sorry! I thought those bolts just held those shin guards to your leg. I didn't know they actually went _through_ them!" The human was standing now, advancing slowly towards her as he spoke. The quarian, seeing this, reached down and slowly pulled one of the bolts from her leg. Dropping it, and soon after the other, into Shepard's outreached hands, she waved his apologies away with a shake of her hand.

"It's nothing. Really." She insisted, attempting to quell the incredulous look upon his face. "It didn't hurt, I promise. Just surprised me. When... when they're... installed, most of the nerve endings in the area are deactivated. I don't actually feel much around my ankles." Tali knew that wasn't completely true, but she didn't want Shepard to be worrying that he had in some way caused her pain. Because he hadn't. The only time she actually felt any pain around the holes was when she replaced the bolts after being outside of her suit, as she would eventually have to do later tonight. Despite their numerous technological advances, the quarians had been unable to resolve that problem. Doctors believed this was because the quarian nervous system utilized adenosine triphosphate as its primary neurotransmitter, which naturally reacted when it came into contact with steel and thus temporarily reactivated the nerve endings. After about a week, the neurotransmitter integrated the steel into its transmissions, and the feeling of pain receded.

But Shepard wasn't buying it. With a mask usually covering her face, Tali had never needed to learn how to properly conceal a lie, and it showed. But the thoroughly dismissive tone she had taken convinced the human that whatever he had done wasn't a major misstep, and he let the subject drop as Tali moved to slide the shin guards off of her legs.

Succeeding in this, she placed the guards into the pile of clothing that was accumulating at her feet. Shepard mimicked her actions, placing the bolts next to the guards, before asking her the obvious question. "Whats next?"

Tali displayed her largest smile of the evening. "How about the helmet?"

The prospect of seeing Tali's full head for the first time was thrilling to the human, but it was the smile that had caught his eye. Perhaps he hadn't noticed it before, or perhaps he had simply been focusing on something else, but he had to ask. "Are... those fangs?"

The quarian slowly raised a hand to her mouth, where she pricked one of her fingers upon the teeth in question. "No..." She answered coyly.

Shepard watched as her lips again closed, the extended teeth again undetectable. Shifting her jaw slightly, however, caused the leftmost tooth to slide out from beneath her upper lip. Watching the human's face go from puzzled to concerned, Tali finally let out a small laugh. "I'm playing with you. Yes, they are "technically" fangs. The elongated maxillary canines quarians have are nothing more than a legacy of our past. Fossil records, before we lost access of course, showed that they used to be much longer, and we believe they were primarily used for the final killing blow upon prey animals."

Her response temporarily stunned Shepard, as he fought to find the right response. "That's... rather encyclopedic."

The young quarian shrugged. "People are curious. My immune system, my eyes, and my teeth are always topics of discussion. I can't really tell you how many times I have had to explain them, although the mask usually limits the amount of people asking about the fangs."

"So..." Shepard started, a sheepish look covering his face as he slid his hands behind his back. "Now that you brought it up, why do your eyes glow?"

"You really want to know?" Tali asked, before the human nodded his head. "Well, as you can see, my eye color is silver, which is the predominant color in the quarian people. However, quarian irises, the iris being the part that makes your eyes blue for example, is naturally bioluminescent. We aren't really sure why, but they just glow a bit. My mask," She took a moment to locate it, before remembering that it still lay upon the bed, "just so happens to make it appear brighter, so we can make eye contact when we talk to other people."

"Huh." Shepard mumbled, a hand scratching his chin in the quintessential expression of thought. "It still seems a little too encyclopedic to remember off the top of you-"

"Why do you have five fingers?" Tali interrupted, as she wiggled her three in front of him. "Krogan have three. Salarians have three. I have three. Why do you have five?"

And Shepard finally understood the point she was trying to make. _Other races did ask that rather frequently! _He gave the same answer he had given anyone else that had asked. "The first animals to walk the land on Earth had five fingers. Evolution hasn't changed that." He bowed his head slightly in deference. "And yes, point made, Miss Zorah."

Glad that she had finally broken through his cognitive block, Tali moved her hands up to each side of her head, so that she could continue desuiting. A slight click accompanied her movements on each side, as she disengaged the locks that held the two portions of the helmet together. Shepard had moved his hands up to her chin, and as such he caught the forward portion of her helmet as it fell away from the back, which she caught. For the first time, Shepard could see the portions of her head that the helmet normally concealed. Watching his eyes trace slowly over each feature, Tali searched for any sign of disappointment. She, and thus Shepard, found none. As she smiled at that conclusion, the human opposite her leaned in closer. "Shall we try this again?" He whispered, before bringing his lips to hers.

On the Fleet, or in quarian culture as a whole, there was no analogue for a 'kiss'. As out-of-suit activity was obviously restricted, it simply never came up. This is not to say, however, that kissing was a human trait, as the other races of the galaxy also engaged in the practice, and scientists postulated that it was an inherent part of physical relations. But to Tali, as it was something wholly new, Shepard's previous kiss upon her forehead had been wonderful. But this second one, upon her lips, took the experience to a new level. Tali had no word to describe the feelings that suddenly blossomed as his lips met hers. It was just... _right_. In so many ways.

After a long embrace, they parted, and what followed was an awkward silence. "Usually, we... or I would..." It was Shepard's turn to search for words, as he rubbed his arm nervously. "I think it's about time-"

"-I finish getting this suit off." Tali finished, moving to sit upon the bed. "You take off the shoes, and I'll get off this neck brace." She finished, working her long digits between the highest golden rings that wrapped her neck.

"Yes, _Commander_." Shepard mumbled in an amused way, as he knelt down to work on her feet. Once again, Tali's knowledge as to how everything worked, combined with her nimble fingers, allowed her to finish before the human had accomplished much of anything.

The "Commander" comment had elicited a smile from Tali, and it only broadened as she watched Shepard look for the seam where her shoes ended. His hands were searching around her ankles, which was far from correct. Taking his hands in hers, she guided him up to her thighs, the long sweep once again igniting her inner passions. But Tali wanted out of the suit, and thus forced the feelings down. The human watched as she demonstrated on one leg how to detach the friction seals that held each shoe to her suit's torso portion, and then aptly mimicked the quarian as she slid the attached leggings down, before finally taking off the shoe completely.

"Almost done." Shepard remarked as the shoe slid off her foot, for only her arms and torso remained covered. "Gloves attach the same way, right?" He asked, grabbing one her wrists.

Tali winced, but couldn't pull her arm away with hurting herself more. "Let go." She mumbled, placing a hand upon his. "Now."

Once again fearing that he had made some incredible mistake, Shepard let go abruptly, various apologies spilling from his mouth. Tali did not immediately respond, instead moving to simply show him the cause of her pain. A couple seconds of fiddling with the friction seals upon her arms allowed her to slowly pull her left glove down. As she pulled it past her wrist, a single drop of blood rolled down her arm, towards her elbow. "That wasn't your doing." She said quickly, attempting to alleviate any regret that the human had in trying to help her. Wiping the blood away, while simultaneously pulling the glove completely off, Tali then turned the garment inside-out, displaying the large needle that resided there. "You couldn't have known that I have these in, Shepard, so don't start apologizing. They just make my wrists sore."

Watching Tali remove the other glove, Shepard again placed his hand upon her arm, although this time up near her elbow. She stopped working on the other glove, to look into his eyes, a questioning look filling her silver gaze. Gently turning over her uncovered arm, Shepard brought into view what had prompted his stopping of her work. Tali's wrist was covered in scars, or track marks, from numerous needle incisions. "That single needle does all of this?"

The young quarian shrugged slowly, taking care not to move the arm he still held tenderly. "I-I mean we, the quarian people I mean, as a whole..." She stopped her embarrassed rambling and attempted to fit together a coherent sentence. "What I mean," She restarted, speaking in a slow, deliberate manner, so as to not alarm Shepard farther, "...is that yes, that single needle does all of that. The needle is fixed to the suit, which can shift considerably during combat or duress. Instead of having the needle break off, or accidentally tear my arm, it is made to fall out. A program on my omnitool automatically reinserts it."

"That's horrible." Shepard murmured, as he moved a finger lightly across her ravaged forearms. "There isn't another way?"

"No." Tali responded, calmly pulling her arm from his grasp. "Maybe if the suits weren't so tight, so flexible, we could make a system like your combat hardsuits has. But static injection points just don't work." With her arm once again freed, she began working off the other glove. "Just like everything else about the suit, you just get used to it, I guess."

"That doesn't make it any easier." Shepard said, shaking his head. "I never really realized, until now, seeing how much work it is to take it off, how much the suit make you miss, Tali. How much I experience that you never can. It's... horrible." He repeated, unable to find a more descriptive word.

The conversational turn from her track marks to the quintessential quarian tragedy was not something that Tali had been expecting, and as such she had no response to his statement. Everything Shepard said was true. Because of the deeds of their ancestors three hundred years past, every quarian was forced into a life of servitude to a ship, to the Fleet, to their very immune systems. Purely intellectual pursuits such as philosophy had mostly stagnated following the quarian exile, but there had been several famous (by quarian standards) philosophers that had attempted to document and explore the duel feelings of community and solitude that quarian culture and their ever-present envirosuits invited. None had really succeeded.

"And that is why this is so amazing to me, Shepard." Tali found herself saying, the words seemingly unbidden. "Sealed behind a layer of fabric, a layer of glass, I have watched the world undergo things I will probably never experience myself. I have watched people eating food, solid food, picked straight from the plant that grew it. I have watched the rain fall upon people's heads, amazed that they would hate it. How I wish I could feel that rain, just once! I have watched for so long... And then I met you, the first person I have ever met that took the time to _watch me._ You saw the fabric, the glass, but you understood that there was something beneath it. And you pursued it! It's hard being with any quarian, much less while your protecting the galaxy, but you did it. Keelah, Shepard, you did it." As her short, unexpected monologue ended, Tali began pushing him back towards the bed.

When his legs hit the bed, the human allowed himself to be pushed into a sitting position. Tali stood in front of him, her silver eyes gleaming with excitement. Arching her back in the same way she had been taught as a child, in a few seconds of perfectly choreographed movement the quarian had managed to slink her way out of the torso portion of her suit, which slid to the ground. A quick knowing glance passed between the two as she slowed to allow the attached catheter to slid out, as human hardsuits featured the same unfortunate response to waste disposal. But that moment passed quickly, and for the first time in two years, Tali stood bare to the universe.

"Your beautif-" Shepard started, before she was upon him. The latent lust, the building desire that she had endured burst from her at that instant, taking the form of her three fingered hands working Shepard's shirt off of his body. After that, as Shepard pulled her into his embrace, he lost the lower section of his work fatigues. The next step was natural, as Tali and Shepard joined together physically for the first time. With the young quarian guiding the encounter, Shepard found himself surprised as her inwardly curved legs provided a level of flexibility that he had never encountered from another woman.

But this was not just a physical endeavor. For this was the conclusion of a relationship that had started over two years before, in a dark alley within the bowels of the citadel. This was the end of a quarian crush that had died along with the first Normandy, only to reawaken on a human colony far from the Fleet. This was the end of an human infatuation that had started as purely scholaric in nature, until a simple conversation within the new Normandy's engine room had exposed its true purpose.

But with all ends comes the birth of something new. Here, in this joining, Tali and Shepard were for the first time linked as lovers, as a couple. The passion that had fueled this meeting would only grow brighter as time went on, as their relationship continued to build.

In a galaxy full of dying stars, a new one was born.

* * *

Checking the clock alongside the bed, Shepard groaned silently to himself. The Omega 4 relay was fast approaching, and Tali needed time to get back into her suit. Thinking of the young quarian caused his eyes to slowly work their way down her silhouetted form, which lay beneath the blankets beside him. She was asleep. The gentle rise and fall of her breath gave no hint to the explosive crescendo they had experienced together, hours earlier. A short conversation had followed, until she had fallen asleep, for apparently drowsiness was a side effect of the antibiotics she had taken, and Shepard had determined that the night was hers to do as she pleased. But now she would have to be awoken, so that she would have enough time to put her suit back on. He hated having to wake her for such a depressing task, especially now that he had seen all that it took to remove it. But it had to be done.

Slowly slipping his arm out from beneath her head, the human searched upon the ground for the discarded clothes he had left earlier that night. Sliding the shirt back over his head, Shepard couldn't help but look over to the pile of glass and fabric that made up Tali's suit. He had saved her from Fist, from Sovereign, from a possible life as an exile. But he couldn't save her from that fate, from the dreadful task of returning to the suit she saw as prison. He sighed.

_"Damn that suit..."_

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**Continues in Chapter Three: Homecoming**

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Author's Note: Until I am blue in the face: Please Review! The amount of reviews I get directly impacts the speed in which I write (or so I tell myself! :D) As I said on top, sorry for the long wait on this installment. The descriptive heavy nature of this story can occasionally throw deadlines out of the window. Also, as you can see, this series continues. I shall not give too much away, but I shall give you a teaser: _Part Three__ takes place on Rannoch. _Now, remember to review!**


	3. Homecoming Part One

**Author's Note: I sincerely hope that you enjoy this story, and that if you do... that you review it. I appreciate any and all feedback, and any questions asked I will try to answer.**

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**Chapter Three: Homecoming Part One**

Three hundred years. For three hundreds years the quarian people had endured exile, prejudice, and hardship. Their once great homeworld of Rannoch, their thriving colonies, their very reputation; all were lost when the war with their creations, the Geth, turned into a quarian genocide. When their allies, when the Council, when the galaxy itself turned their backs, the quarians were forced aboard a motley collection of ships, soon christened the "Migrant Fleet".

Life aboard the Fleet, isolated as they were, was hard. Once friendly trading partners closed their markets. Supplies dwindled. The Admiralty Board was forced to enact strict rationing, and to abolish free trade. Harsh tactics yes, but the rapid decline of the quarian population finally leveled off at around 17 million.

Some would call this punishment enough for the creation of a sentient machine race. But, as the galaxy seems fond of doing, tragedy proceeded to build upon tragedy. Quarian immune systems had never been very strong, as Rannoch lacked many of the rampant pathogens that eventually strengthened a body's ability to resist them. Forced from their worlds, suddenly thrust into sterile environments lacking any sort of pathological stimuli, Quarian immune systems started to naturally degrade. The changes were slow, at first only increasing the number of shots and immunizations children had to endure. But as the years became decades, and the decades became centuries, a point was reached in which the amount of foreign material and bacteria encountered during the day became untenable.

So, living up to their reputation as inventors and machinists, the Quarians built complicated and complex environmental suits to stave off sickness and disease. And while they succeeded in once again preventing their own extinction, it came at a tremendous price. The suits only hastened the destruction of what remained of their immune systems, and soon they were forced to wear them at all times. Cut off from fresh air, from the tactile sensation of touch, from the joys of experiencing the galaxy unfiltered, it seemed that the tragedy that had become Quarian life would never end.

That is, however, until a human marine by the name of Shepard arrived upon the galactic scene. A man of remarkable martial skill, he matched this with an unrelenting drive to destroy the threat of the Reapers. Defeating Sovereign, assaulting the Collector base; these were only the prologue in a War that eventually lasted four long years. Billions of lives were lost, hundreds of worlds went dark, but the galactic alliance Shepard forged eventually overcame the greatest threat ever experienced by biological life.

This alliance forced many an odd bedfellow to lay down past grievances, with the most potent being the Quarians and the Geth. After much political wrangling, coupled with a touch of heroic bravado, Shepard managed to enact a truce between the two. As the War continued, this truce blossomed into a rough alliance, as the Reapers drove towards Rannoch. A battle for the planet itself, culminating with the dramatic arrival of the SSV Normandy and the Migrant Fleet, broke the back of the Reaper invasion, and cemented a lasting relationship between the Geth and Quarian people.

This is not to say, however, that the Quarians were welcomed back to Rannoch with open arms. A lasting resentment between both races simmered for nearly a year, until a Quarian Admiral attempted to once again subjugate the Geth. Only the timely arrival of Commander Shepard and Tali'Zorah prevented this plan from coming to fruition. The Geth, while still weary, finally allowed the first Quarians to land on their beloved homeworld. After three hundred years of exile, the Quarians began returning home.

That return, ongoing as it is, was slower than anyone would have liked. The Geth, finally accepted into the greater galactic society, wished to expedite the Quarian return in order to build upon their increasingly friendly relationship, and to have Quarian support in their bid for an embassy aboard the Citadel. The Quarians, of course, simply wanted to return home, to live without the suits they hated so much. But the safe disembarkation and support of 17 million individuals was, by necessity, a slow process. This was especially true when you factor in the nearly complete desolation of Quarian immune systems, forcing the reintroduction onto Rannoch to be gradual, as they acclimatized over a period of years. They also had to take great care in deciding what to send planetside, as the accidental introduction of foreign material could ruin the very environment the Quarians had dreamed of, and the Geth protected, for those three centuries.

Attempting to be as fair as possible, the Admiralty Board introduced a random lottery to decide the order in which individual quarians would be allowed to return to Rannoch. No special considerations were given. As such, it had taken nearly a year before Tali'Zorah, who (because of her relationship with Shepard) some called the architect of their return, was given permission to travel to her people's homeworld. Unfortunately this permission came in the middle of the Normandy's 'Victory Tour', in which it was tasked with visiting delegations around the galaxy. This only further prolonged the wait Tali had to endure.

But, finally, nearly two years after the end of Reaper War, Tali was mere hours from returning to the planet she had long dreamt about. Standing aboard the space station 'Homecoming', she could not help but smile at the name. Homecoming had been built by the Geth as the largest of their stations circling Rannoch, as they maintained the planet as a war memorial for three centuries. Now, as the quarian people returned, it had been given to them as a station in which final preparations could be made before heading planetside.

* * *

The click of a pressurized seal brought Tali back from her thoughts. Standing within a clean room, the quarian girl turned her attention to the box in front of her. Laying inside, visible through the clear glass, was the environmental suit she had worn unceasingly for years. Her silver eyes slowly followed the lines of the suit as the box was picked up by a mechanical arm, before being placed into a smaller airlock, destined for storage. Tali couldn't bring herself to believe it. _She was free._

As a youth she had been so excited to reach adolescence, where upon every quarian was given their first environmental suit. Back then, the suit had stood for freedom. Age, as it had a habit of doing, rectified her naive views on the subject. Going years within the suit, locked away from the palpable pleasures the rest of the galaxy experienced daily, Tali had grown to hate it. The suit became a prison.

Slowly spreading her arms, Tali again smiled as her suit disappeared from view behind the airlock's door. Now... now she was _free._ Free from the cling, free from the filters, free from the burden that came with being one suit rupture away from a slow death. Tali reveled as she felt fresh air slide against her skin for the first time in a long while, as her arms reached the apex of their ascent. "Oh, Keelah..." She murmured, the words sounding so much sweeter without having to pass through a voice modulator.

The Geth had tried to anticipate Quarian needs when they had converted this portion of the station into a clean room. As such, a mirror had been built into the wall, allowing Tali to take the opportunity to observe her new outfit. Quarian style had stagnated over the past three hundred years, as their suit's functionality became more important then their ascetic beauty. Upon the Citadel, and within other realms of 'high fashion', women were expected to wear long dresses that covered them from sole to neck. Quarians, however, deviated substantially from this expectation, thanks in large part to those three hundred years covered from head to foot in rubber and fabric. To put it bluntly, Quarian clothing tended to be revealing.

After a history of being sealed within airtight suits, it was simply unacceptable to wear such conservative clothing. Tali's outfit consisted of a crop top and skirt, both designed to mimic her suit only so far as to their tightness and pattern. The top, basically a t-shirt cut off beneath her breasts and thus exposing her midriff, was ringed along its edges in gold, while the rest was covered in her trademark purple swirls. The top's sleeves, short as they were, only reached past her shoulders before ending in the same gold piping. Spinning slowly, the quarian girl watched as her short swirled purple skirt flared out, its lowest hemline only reaching halfway down her thigh.

Had she not seen other quarians wear similar clothing, Tali may have feared it was too revealing. And to the rest of the galaxy, it was. Magazines and newspapers across citadel-space were filled with stories exposing the 'degenerative' and 'demeaning' clothing that the quarian people had chosen to wear. But to Tali, as she allowed her arms to drop, the benefits were clear. By far, the worst part of wearing an envirosuit was the loss of touch. Nerve stimulation and contact replication could only do so much. Tali had longed for the opportunity to experience the galaxy without a layer of fabric between her skin and the wind, the rain, the snow. The way she saw it, the more skin exposed, the better.

This willingness to show some skin, however, did not extend to the quarian people's faces. Quarian envirosuits had always contained built in polarized visors, reducing what others saw to just a pair of glowing eyes paired with the briefest hint of a nose. As such, as the quarian people shed those suits, many still chose to cover their face in some sort of way. Men tended to wear a piece of fabric around the lower portion of their head, exposing only their eyes and that which lay above. Women, mimicking their more restrictive suit designs, tended to wear full hoods coupled with fabric swathes across their faces, thus exposing only their eyes.

Tali just couldn't bring herself to wear such an accessory. To her, the greatest reward any quarian could wish for after enduring untold years inside an envirosuit was to walk with their head bare underneath Rannoch's sun. As their ancestors had done. She understood the fear some people had, especially because quarian society put such a special emphasis on revealing your face, but times were changing. Style and custom had to change with it. And without that hood or veil, the wind could be truly felt even from the smallest of movements. _Well,_ she thought, _just walking will be an experience wearing this!_

The thought of walking returned Tali's thoughts to the present. The clean room she was currently standing in had two doors. The one to her left, the one in which she had entered, led to the "dirty" portion of the station, where new arrivals were briefed on the rules regarding traveling to Rannoch. The second door, which Tali turned towards, led to the 'clean' side of the station, the last staging point before boarding a shuttle to Rannoch's surface. Walking towards that door, the young quarian suddenly froze, before turning back to grab her shoes.

A lifetime of wearing a suit with built in shoes made it easy to forget them. If she could, Tali would have gone shoeless, as her ancestors did so long ago. But all that time within the suit had softened the soles of her feet, and she didn't want to experience walking over gravel or rocks with such soft skin.

Sliding one shoe on, and then the other, Tali soon found herself ready to leave. Again walking to the 'clean side' door, she cranked the airlock open before stepping in. The decontamination cycle was quick, and before long Tali was pulling open the outward door, walking out of a clean room, unsuited, for the first time in her life.

The gravity of this occasion wasn't lost on the quarian, but the sight that greeted her brought forth a laugh that overrode any celebratory reaction. Commander Shepard, hero of the Citadel, hero of the Collector Raid, hero of the Reaper War, stood in front of her, a frustrated glare on his face. "You didn't tell me I would have to wear this." He mumbled dejectedly.

Tali tried to look concerned, even surprised, but she couldn't stifle a second laugh. The human was fully covered in a quarian-style envirosuit, complete with purple facemask. His suits styling was basically a more masculine variation of what her suit had displayed, with purple and black being the predominate colors. A quick glance would have allowed Shepard to pass as a quarian, but the lack of two-toed feet, recurved legs, and his heavier frame ultimately betrayed him to the more observant. Of course, all of that was rendered mute, as the human had his facemask unpolarized, thus revealing his face. "Good to see you care." He said, his glare intensifying.

Fighting hard to suppress the laugh, Tali took a deep breath before answering. Her voice was calm, only occasionally rising as she suppressed a giggle. "You really didn't read the introductory packet about Rannoch that I gave you?" Shepard's eyes widened, thus answering her question. "I thought so. Here, let me give you the a brief rundown on what it would have said."

"I've gone through so much paperwork, with all this "galactic-hero" nonsense, I just figured I could wing it..."

"I can see that." Tali replied. "Then..." She motioned with her hand, taking in his whole body with a single sweep, "...this must have been quite a surprise." Shepard nodded. "Then let me explain: on Rannoch, you would be an environmental disaster. My homeworld isn't especially fragile, but we... the quarians I mean, still are. As such, if you were to walk around without some sort of suit, you could get everyone we meet sick."

Shepard put a hand to his facemask. "But I have my old hardsuit! That worked well enough whenever we went on the Fleet. Why do I have to wear this now?"

"From a practical standpoint," she replied, "introducing all of the pollen, spores, and dirt that hardsuit has acquired wouldn't be good for Rannoch. And yes, I know, we could sterilize it. But that's why there is a second reason. I-I requested that you be given a suit like that. My people are producing a whole range, a kind for every race, so that they can land on the planet once we are ready for them. Plus with that suit, if you polarize the mask, we can move about without anyone bothering us. I'd like our day, today, to be without masses of people asking for our autograph. To them, you'll just look like a visiting dignitary."

Shepard tilted his head, his look of outrage now replaced with one of puzzlement. "You requested that I have a suit like this?"

"Umm... Y-Yes." Tali shifted on her feet, as a smile spread across Shepard's face. "Your still the only one that knows what my face looks like. With you wearing that mask, we will be left alone. And, its a sign of respect to my people. The Asari diplomats who have visited have worn suits like yours. And-"

"And you wanted to dress me up in a quarian suit, Tali?" Shepard finished for her, his grin turning into a smirk. He pivoted on his heel. "So how do I look?"

Tali felt her cheeks grow hot as she blushed. "I-I... You.. We have been together for so l-long. I.. I just wanted to..."

Watching her stumble over her words, as she had done so often when their relationship was new, only widened Shepard's smile. As they had been together for four years now, she rarely fell back into such vocalized embarrassment. _It's a shame really,_ Shepard thought. _ I always found it cute._

Tali again opened her mouth, but closed it as she fought to find a way to explain how seeing him wear a suit nearly identical to the kind she had worn for so long felt to her. Fifteen years locked inside that prison, Tali had come to hate her envirosuit. She would never wish that a person be stuck inside a suit like her people had been. But the idea of seeing Shepard wear one, to see him behind a visor not unlike the one she had worn for so long, had been... exciting to her.

"It's fine, Tali. It is." Shepard's words broke the young quarian's train of thought, as she resurfaced from her dive into a cognitive quagmire. He took her hands, as he had done so many times before, in his. But this time, as her ungloved hands rested beneath his covered digits, Tali found it to be a breathtakingly new experience. "Have the Asari really worn suits like this?"

"Y-Yes." Tali responded, her confidence returning as she realized that he had purposely turned the conversation away from it's previous course. "My people have only allowed a few respected envoys land on Rannoch. The Asari were the first to ask for suits that resembled our own. Now the Turian assembly arriving next week have done the same. Apparently the Admiralty Board was surprised at this show of respect."

"Then that settles it. Anyone asks, I'm wearing the suit as a sign of respect." He winked at her. "Is there anything I should know about walking around in this thing? I only just got out here, before you came out of your clean room."

"Nothing important, really." She started, before moving next to his left arm. Activating his omnitool, she linked it with his suit's microprocessor. Soon diagnostics began rolling down screen. Her nimble fingers danced across the holographic display, as she ran through the reports before continuing. "You will notice that your suit works in just about the same way mine did, except in reverse. It's meant to keep everything inside, instead of everything out, after all. Breathing in should be normal, but exhaling should turn on the helmet's filters... right?"

Shepard nodded, breathing in and out to demonstrate it. "You probably noticed as you were putting the suit on that yours lacks some of the more... obtrusive... additions that my suit had. Right?"

The human nodded. "From what I've seen of your suit... helping you take it off..." His voice trailed off, as he remembered the first night he had done so. The process, though long, had definitely been worth it. And after that, whenever Tali had been ready for another night together, his helping during her desuiting had become a special way to start off the evening. A bit more research had helped the human actually become more of an assistance in that regard, instead of a bothersome hindrance.

"Oh. Um. Where was I?" Shepard said, shaking himself out of his memories. "Ah, yes. Putting on this suit, I noticed that there are no shin bolts. Just bracing around my lower legs."

"Well, you actually paid attention!" Tali replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yes. Your suit is modeled after the newest generation of envirosuits produced for my people. A couple years back, just after I got my first one actually, they replaced the archaic system of bolts with reinforced leg bracing. A definite improvement." Tali's gaze drifted downward, past Shepard's omnitool, to her own legs. Uncovered as they were, the bolts she still had in place were visible for anyone to see. She had gotten a new set to match her skin color in preparation for today, but that had only done so much. Even freed from her suit, those bolts would have to remain, a permanent reminder of what she had escaped. She sighed.

Shepard had followed her gaze, and seeing her shoulders drop in disappointment, he attempted to get her talking again.

"Did they change the design of the needles in each wrist? Because mine haven't fallen out once."

It took a moment for the quarian to meet his eyes again, but before long she was back to reading the various diagnostics on his omnitool. "No." She finally replied. "They are the same, one needle in each wrist, as I had in my suit. They will actually stay in place most of the time. Its only when you somersault over a barrier, before shooting a couple husks, that they start falling out often. Thanks for taking me on all those combat missions, by the way."

Hearing another soft gibe from Tali heartened Shepard. He didn't want her sad or depressed when they actually traveled to Rannoch. A sudden pain in one of those wrists allowed him to ignore her 'combat mission' comment, however, as he realized that she had just dumped some chemical into his bloodstream. "What the hell was that?"

Tali, taking her hands off his omnitool, looked around the room. The nearest reflective surface was a steel bulkhead set into the opposite wall. She would have preferred a window or view port, but Geth stations weren't built with such ostentatious structural weaknesses. Shrugging a bit, she pulled Shepard over to the bulkhead, before tapping the pack that was strapped to his lower bicep. "Unlike my suit, yours has a single repository wherein all chemicals are stored. One of the-"

"Holy hell, Tali! My eyes are glowing!" Shepard broke in, his hands instinctively rising to his face, almost comically bumping against the visor before he realized the folly of such an action. But he was right, as his normally pale blue eyes had suddenly taken on a slight silver glow, not unlike Tali's.

"R-Right." She replied, waiting to see if the human would have another outburst. Seeing him turn towards her with a _'you better start explaining look'_, she finally continued. "First off, your fine. It's not permanent. It's not toxic. As I was saying before you interrupted me, one of those chemicals now stored within your suit is called 'hydrophyloxide'. Once introduced into the bloodstream, it starts to give off a slight glow. The only place this is really visible is in your pupils, as your blood is pumped through liquid that is naturally transparent."

Shepard stared at her, as a long awkward silence past between the two. As if finally determining everything to be all right, he took a step back from the reflective bulkhead. "You could of warned me." Tali began to explain herself, but a dismissive wave of the hand from Shepard quieted her. "I-I understand, I guess. Just weird you know? But how else am I going to make eye contact once you polarize this mask?"

"You think it's weird? You never mentioned that, with my naturally eyes glowing all the time." Tali responded. It was now her turn to quiet Shepard with a dismissive gesture, giggling as she explained it away as a joke. "But speaking of eyes," she started, "I think we have talked enough of your change in clothing. What do you think of mine?"

As if finally noticing her wardrobe, or lack thereof, for the first time, Shepard's face flipped through a series of emotions. The first was actual surprise, allowing Tali to conclude that his own concern regarding his suit had effectively blinded him to her abrupt change in clothing. But that look died quickly as his (now glowing) eyes ran up and down her body. After doing so he took a step closer to her, his hand hovering next to her uncovered arm. A slight affirmative nod by the quarian was followed by his gloved hand slowly working its way up to her shoulder, before stopping as the tightness of her shirt stopped him from continuing up to her neck. He was answering her question in a most unexpected way.

Their nights alone together had accustomed Tali to movements such as this, as the sensual feeling they both had gotten from the feel of his skin against hers had routinely resulted in such slow caresses. But this was different. It reminded her of when they embraced outside the Normandy, when she was wearing her suit, but reversed. And it was this reversal that made the experience new to her again. She mouthed a silent moan.

Tali was so accustomed to such feelings arising when they were both uncovered that she went to kiss him upon his lips, despite their present surroundings. But his purple visor, still unpolarized, stopped her. Doing the best she could, the young quarian planted her lips onto the mask, opposite his. Shepard had followed her movements with his eyes, and had even leaned down in anticipation of her kiss. The visor's existence had apparently taken them both by surprise.

"I can see why you hate these suits already." He murmured before drawing her body against his. They stayed locked in such an embrace for what Tali assumed to be ages. Her mind, as it always did when she was with Shepard unsuited, was making it's wishes quite apparent as she delighted in this impromptu passion. She wanted to pounce on him. _Badly._

To do so in this station, however, would simply not do. The small hallway they were standing in was unoccupied for now, but it was by no means private. Knowing this, Tali slowly separated from Shepard, disappointment apparent in both of their eyes. Another moment of quiet passed between the couple as their emotions cooled, before Shepard asked the obvious question.

"It's about time we headed down to Rannoch, right?"

Tali nodded slowly, her mind immediately traveling to the planet below as she sought to smother the embarrassment that arose as she thought of what they had just done. _The Geth have cameras everywhere, for Keelah's sake_.

Fortunately, there were a multitude of questions in which to smother such thoughts. _What would if feel like to walk upon Rannoch's surface, unsuited? To see the sky without a visor? To smell the air without filters? _The idea was just so abnormal, so different, she had no way in which to answer those questions. _There was only one way to find out._

"Let's go," She said, again grabbing his arm. "I think I know where they are running the shuttles." This time, however, Shepard did not budge. The young quarian turned to glare at the human for his delay, but the sly smile on his face stopped her cold. "What aren't you telling me?"

Reaching into one of the myriad of pockets hidden across his suit, Shepard pulled a small square card out. It's bottom edge was ribbed with a series of octagonal cuts, while its top portion had a small chain leading off of it. "This is a key, to a shuttle." Shepard said, his gloved hands slowly running along the chain. "Your not the only one who planned ahead for this day."

Placing her hands upon her hips, all the while noticing how different the action felt without her suit, Tali tilted her head. "The Admiralty Board has been rather strict in regards to limiting unsupervised shuttle excursions... How did you get that key?"

"Being the Hero of the Council Space earns you certain privileges, along with all the paperwork. I'm also quite persuasive."

"I saw that when you shouted them down at my treason trial." Tali said, her mind touching on those events long past. She had never seen him yell so vigorously, nor had she ever seen the Admiralty Board so taken aback. "So where are we landing?"

"You'll see." Shepard responded coyly. Tali moved to grab the key to examine it further, but the human lifted it out of her reach, above his head. Laughing, he started heading down the hallway. "Follow me!"

Leading her through a myriad of hallways and tunnels, Tali was sure that Shepard was lost. Just as she was about to break her silence and ask exactly where they were going, the human stopped before an airlock. Sliding the square key into a slot, the door opened quietly. In a humorous display of human chivalry, Shepard allowed her to enter first. Turning back to look at him as she crossed over the airlock's threshold, she inwardly grinned as she observed his silver-ringed eyes suddenly flick up to meet her gaze. Shala'raan, a couple days prior, had shown her how to walk a bit more... provocatively, with her new skirt. Apparently it had acquired his attention.

Returning her gaze forward, Tali's natural affinity for any sort of ship led her to examine every inch of the vessel with an expert eye. The shuttle was a small thing, with just a two-seat cockpit and small storage area perched atop an outdated engine. "This is from the Migrant Fleet..." Tali mumbled, running her hands over the Khelish words painted onto the control panel. "This shuttle. Named the Alkoose."

Shepard nodded. "With so many of your people heading down to Rannoch, your Fleet has for the first time a surplus of ships. So they let me borrow one."

"It probably helped that the request came from the human that saved the galaxy, right _Hero?_" Tali replied, emphasizing the last word. Shepard had earned, in every sense of the word, the title "hero". But he was a humble man, and as such hated such titles. The rolling of his eyes, all the more poignant now that they glowed a shallow silver, made this clear.

"Yeah..." He finally allowed, taking one of the seats as he motioned for her to take the other. Tali did so, blushing as she had trouble getting her skirt to fall properly as she sat down, although it took just a couple seconds of rearrangement to satisfy her. Apparently she would be learning quite a few unexpected techniques about living unsuited today. As Shepard looked across at her, as she began powering the shuttle up, the thought of her being unsuited brought forth a rather obvious question. "Um, Tali?" He tried, trying to lay out the words to his question before she responded. He didn't want to insult her.

"Yes Shepard?" Tali said, her eyes never leaving the ship's console as she mechanically closed the airlock, before firing the engine. Shepard had run out of time. He would just have to ask it.

"How can you go to Rannoch unsuited, while any other locale would kill you?"

The young quarian's fingers stopped abruptly, another smile appearing on her face. "You really should have read that 'Rannoch Intro Guide'."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Shepard replied, his eyes rolling behind his mask.

Tali returned to typing, but she explained briefly. "Our immune systems are weak. You know that, and thus the suits. But Rannoch is the closest we can get to a "perfect environment" for our poor immune systems, because my people evolved there. That doesn't mean I can just drive down their and frolic in the fields though." She giggled a bit at this, the idea far funnier to her than Shepard. "So I had to prepare. Remember how I had to take all those antibiotics every time we met in your cabin? Well, I just used a different cocktail to prepare myself for today."

As she spoke of antibiotics, Shepard's eyes traveled to her wrists, where the scars from years of injections remained. The truth of her explanation was written there, as a small red wound was visible on each arm. "Will you always need to take so many drugs before going planetside?"

Tali shook her head. "No, thankfully. The longer I, or any quarian, stays on Rannoch, the less antibiotics we will have to take. Eventually, a couple decades from now, we won't need any. And our children... Quarian children won't need any at all."

Speaking of quarian children forced Tali to pause, her eyes closing in sorrow. The Admiralty Board had just announced that the "One-Child Limit" they had long enforced was being removed. Tali knew what this meant to her people, but it had hurt her all the same. Choosing an alien, a human, as her partner had destroyed any chance of establishing a natural family. Their biology just wouldn't allow it, no matter what they wished. A couple late nights in Shepard's cabin, basking in the afterglow of their combined love, had naturally turned to this problem. Shepard had once mentioned adoption, but they both knew a child was a luxury they just couldn't afford . An active military vessel was no place for a kid. Perhaps now, with the War finished, they could look into it again...

A sudden crash of static from the shuttle's radio brought Tali out of her thoughts. She must have missed the first portion of the transmission, as it started with a 'repeat': "Repeat, this is Station MX-1 Homecoming Control. Shuttle Alkoose, please state your intentions."

From the ship's main console, Shepard grabbed a portable microphone before responding. "Homecoming Control, this is Captain Shepard, onboard the Alkoose. I am initiating the planetside travel plans I worked out with your Commander yesterday."

The quarian working Control asked for a second to confirm this information, before again replying after a burst of static. "Your request for travel to Rannoch is confirmed, Shepard. Docking clamps are now disengaged. You may leave whenever you deem you are ready. No outgoing or incoming traffic is expected for a couple of hours."

"Thank you, Control." Shepard said, before returning the microphone to it's cradle. He turned to Tali. "You ready to go?"

Running through a mental checklist, the young quarian found herself ready. But the same could not be said of Shepard. "I am ready to go, but you aren't." She vocalized.

Shepard tilted his head, puzzled, until Tali motioned to her face. "Oh." The human mumbled, finally realizing his mistake. "I guess having this mask wouldn't do much at hiding my face, if I don't polarize it... right?" As she nodded, he brought up is omnitool in an effort to rectify that situation. But try as he could, Shepard just couldn't find the control mechanism for the mask.

Watching him struggle, Tali finally grabbed his arm. "What would you do without me?" She asked rhetorically, before flipping open a couple menus. In a span of three seconds she had the appropriate control panel open on his omnitool. "Just confirm your choice with that button there."

Taking a second in an attempt to memorize what she had done to reach this point, and largely failing, Shepard finally pushed his finger into the holographic display. His view immediately started to cloud, and he feared that he may have hit the wrong button. But just as his ability to see died completely, a series of heads-up displays lit up on the inside of his facemask. As some of the text upon them was in Khelish, Shepard wasn't completely sure what returned his vision, but the shuttle's interior soon again became visible. He had to ask. "Did it work?"

The response from Tali was late, and Shepard turned to face her. One of her three fingered hands covered her mouth, the expression odd for a quarian so used to a mask preventing such an action, as she stared at him. His questioning gaze finally broke through to her as she blinked thrice in succession, before stammering out a reply. "Oh my, yes Shepard. Excuse me, really." She waved her right hand. "Its just... with only your eyes visible.. You look just like one of my people. The legs, the hands are wrong... But Keelah, its crazy to think that you are under that fabric."

Shepard hadn't expected such a surprised reaction from her, and he struggled to find a response. He didn't want to embarrass her by bringing up the fact that she had requested he get the suit, so that really left him with one option. "L-Let's just head down to the surface."

Nodding, Tali sat back in her chair, her hands absentmindedly running across her uncovered legs. Usually Tali drove the various shuttles that were such a necessary part of living onboard the Normandy, but Shepard took the helm today as only he knew their intended landing zone. As he pulled away from the station, she didn't even notice his unsteady driving, as her mind churned through all that she had experienced today. Even the short time she had spent unsuited today had shown her a lot, and the same could be said of Shepard as he became accustomed to his suit. Despite it all, she looked forward to their landing on Rannoch itself. It was one thing to walk around without a suit on a sterile space station. It was unusual for sure, but she had done it before. But walking unsuited beneath an open sky? That would be a new experience altogether.

Shepard's relatively inexperienced hands guided the Alkoose into a slow decent towards Rannoch. As the planet filled more and more of the shuttle's view port, Tali found herself unable to look away. It was almost heartbreaking when Shepard closed the exterior thermal plating, as the heat from reentry built upon their small shuttle. Without anything to see, the young quarian only sat impatiently as Shepard flew by the various instruments in front of him. The wait was killing her, but eventually the craft slowed into a hover, before the scrape of earth against the hull announced their arrival.

Shepard was up first, walking towards the exterior door on the right side of the shuttle, although Tali was nearly biting at his heels. Reaching the control panel next to the door, Shepard turned to look at his partner. "We have arrived."

Her impatience almost overwhelming, Tali fought the urge to open the door herself. But after a few seconds of waiting the human pressed his hand against the display, and the door slowly swung open.

The bright glare of the sun against her unmasked face caused Tali to shield her eyes as she stumbled out of the small craft. As her pupils dilated and her vision returned, her breath was taken away in gasps. Shepard was beside her, his hands on his hips, but she couldn't of told you that, as she took in her surroundings and his reason for landing here finally becoming clear.

In every direction, for as far as she could see, stretched pale yellow grass, about ankle high. But it was what grew from this grass that overwhelmed Tali. Every couple of feet a large red flower blossomed, its petals swaying gently as a slight breeze played across them.

Her eyes wide, another gasp escaping her lips, Tali walked to the nearest flower. Dropping to her knees, she picked the delicate plant from the ground, before raising it to her nose. Closing her eyes, the young quarian breathed in deeply. Her fear of what this day would bring, her anxiety as she had worried over every detail; all of it faded instantly as the flower's fragrance filled her thoughts. Inhaling again, she felt Shepard kneel beside her, his arm wrapping around her shoulders.

Turning slowly to meet his gaze as tears ran silently down her face, Tali found herself without the words to thank him. She tried, sobbing as she was, to say something, but Shepard only shook his head slowly. He stood up slowly, before walking back to the shuttle. Tali returned to the flower in her hands, silently thanking Shepard for all that he had done, for bringing her here, as her tears for the first time impacted upon Rannoch.

But she was not the only one with tears in their eyes. As Shepard leaned against the shuttle he was surprised to feel a tear welling in his right eye as he watched Tali tenderly caress the flower's stem, her shoulders shaking with emotion. He hadn't expected this arrival to hurt him so badly, but his heart was rending as a realization hit him. After all he had done, all that he had sacrificed, he couldn't share this experience with her. He could see it, but he he could feel it, couldn't smell it, because of the suit he had to wear. For the first time in his life, he finally understood why she had hated her envirosuit so much. A single thought, as poignant as it was enraging, kept running through his thoughts.

"_Damn these suits..."_

_

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_**Continues with Chapter Four: Homecoming Part Two**

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Author's Note: Any comments, questions, concerns, or reviews are always appreciated. Hopefully you enjoyed it! **


	4. Homecoming Part Two

**Author's Note: Once again, sorry for the long wait on this installment. Also, please review/comment/ask a question. I try to respond to any questions posed, and I sincerely appreciate any feedback. _Seriously. Please Review._**

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**Beneath the Veil: Homecoming Part 2**

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_Years, no... at least a decade. I have dreamed of this experience, or something like it, for a decade. I've explored every possibility, every eventuality. I've done research on how things happen and how I would probably react in preparation. But __nothing__... by Keelah __**nothing**__ had prepared me for this amount of pain. I never thought a red flower would literally bring me to my knees. I never expected the scent of a plant would bring forth a deluge of tears. __**I never knew how much I was missing.**_

Tali'Zorah, her knees firmly planted in the dirt of her people's homeworld, inhaled deeply. She had existed fifteen years within clean rooms and sterilized 'bubbles'. She had existed another ten within a second skin of fabric and steel. But it was only now, the flower's aroma lingering in her nose, that Tali found fault with merely existing. Now... now she was finally _**living. **_There was no thin layer of cloth, no polarized glass, no filters standing between her and the galaxy.

The interviews she had seen about other quarians, the reports coming out of the Admiralty Board; all had pointed to the first steps onto the surface unsuited as a revolutionary experience coupled with a feeling of immense joy. To Tali, however, it had done nothing but pile more tears upon those already called forth by the simple tactile sensations she had never known existed.

To be truthful, she knew that she should be happy. Joyful. But Tali only found herself wishing she could thank all of those who had made this homecoming possible. Her people, their Fleet. The Geth, despite her now abandoned bigotry. And Shepard. He deserved it the most.

Thinking of the human brought Tali out of her reflective mood, as she turned her head in search of him. He had come over to her when she first knelt before the flower, she remembered that. But now he was gone. The soft grass of Rannoch allowed the young quarian to chart his movements, as his heavy footsteps left slight imprints upon the grass. Following them with her gaze, she saw that he had moved back to the shuttle and stopped, before traversing to the other side out of her line of sight. Attempting to quell her curiosity while simultaneously wishing for a chance to regain her emotional composure, Tali pushed herself to her feet. Her breath was still labored, coming in sharp gasps as the last of her grateful sobs worked themselves from her diaphragm, but she was soon moving. Traveling around the front of the shuttle she let her hand trail along the side of it, before drawing back suddenly. It's metal exterior reminded her too much of her suit.

Rounding the final corner gave Tali a clear line of sight to where Shepard knelt, almost mimicking the position she had just left. As she moved towards him silently, she noticed his shoulders heaving up and down, perhaps in great euphoria... or great pain. Her quarian sensibilities kicking in, she guessed the later. Finally nearing him, she saw Shepard clutched a red flower in his hands, it's tender petals tickling his helmet's chin. "Oh no..." Tali murmured, breaking into a run. _Great pain it was._

To any other humanoid, reading the emotions of a person inside an envirosuit was difficult. A quarian-style facemask only furthered hampered those efforts. But Tali had years of experience, and she knew Shepard far too intimately to miss what was going on. He had managed to turn off his helmet's voice modulator, but he hadn't disengaged his voice indication light, which now blinked rapidly. Tali had seen Shepard get shot. He had seen his mind attacked by an AI on the planet of Aite. By the ancestors, she had seen him _die_. But Tali had never seen Shepard_** cry.**_

Yet crying he was. The heaving shoulders; the flickering voice light, the silver eyes only occasionally opening: all tell-tale signs she could not ignore. But what to do? This was another unexpected development; one that she had never dreamed of when hypothesizing about Rannoch. Shepard was the most emotionally stoic man she had ever met, capable of riding out any storm without a hint of distress. But seeing him kneel, apparently broken as he was, she couldn't make a rational decision. So she went with what her instincts whispered.

Planting one knee in the soft grass, she reached a lithe arm across his back. But as her bare limb touched his suit, the human reacted wildly. In the shortest of time spans he was standing, the flower crushed in his fist as he stormed away from her. Shepard did take the time to reactivate his voice modulator, but his tone wrung hollow with checked emotion as he spoke. "Just... just give me some time Tali. I... this is your day. Enjoy it. Let me get myse-"

"No." Her firm retort cut into his sentence, stopping it short. "This is our day Shepard. _** Ours.**_ I want you to be happy too. For me. For us."

Shepard had reached the shuttle before he responded. When that response came it was in the form of his fist, still wrapped around the crushed flower, slamming into the shuttle's metallic side. "Dammit..." He growled, the venom in his words lessening with every second as a deep melancholy returned. "I wanted this to be perfect."

Tali again approached, and this time the human remained still as she slowly embraced him. "It is perfect." She began, her fingers working slowly across the same type of fabric that had for so long entombed her. "I'm on Rannoch. Your here. Perfect."

It was rare to see Shepard wilt so visibly, but her words seemed to burrow into his very posture. "I know. I know." He repeated. "It is perfect. That's why I chose this spot to land... because I knew what it would mean to you. But... I didn't expect it to mean that much to me..." His fist slowly uncurled, the shattered flower unrolling in his hand. "...yet it does."

Tali's naturally silver eyes followed the flower's progress, before she shifted them to meet his artificially comparable gaze. "I saw what you were doing. The suit works in reverse for you, removing some of the sensory deprivation I experienced. But it still scrubs the air you take in. Your helmet's olfactory system can replicate some of what you would normally smell. But it can't do something as complex as a flower's fragrance. I... I'm sorry Shepard, the suits aren't perfect."

A long silence greeted her despondent remark, as Shepard remained fixated on the flower. But she had hit upon what had been ailing him, and he knew it. "It's not your fault," He said. "Don't apologize. I-I should have known this suit's limits before landing. Remember when we went back to Eden Prime, after the Omega 4 relay? I tried to show you that flower. A yellow lily I think..."

"It was a tulip." Tali corrected softly, the memory springing forth as if it had happened yesterday. _His embarrassed expression as she explained that she would would never be able to smell it. His downcast look as he placed the flower back upon the ground. _ She would never forget. _Maybe I'll try growing some tulips here_, her subconscious mused as Shepard again began talking.

"I just wanted to experience this... with you, Tali. I can see it, sure. But its just not the same... as smelling it, or hearing it without the aid of audio receivers..." His voice trailed off, before reappearing in a more robust state than it had left. "And I've been an idiot."

Tali had readied a reassuring comment, a soothing retort to smother the somber fire that had burned within him. As such, she was caught unaware as he seemed to douse the flame by himself. Into the sudden void of understanding marched curiosity: "W-Why?"

Shepard lifted his hand, the red blossom dancing sedately as its crippled petals caught a breeze. "My feelings, my wishes... they're secondary, Tali. What really hurts, what I only now understand, is what you have experienced. Or, to put it better, _what you haven't experienced_." With a flick of his wrist he let the tortured flower fall to the ground. "I wear an envirosuit for a couple of minutes, and I lament at what I have lost. You-" He placed a hand on each of Tali's shoulders. "You've worn a suit for years, bearing a burden I never understood. _And you never complained._"

"I had to. I knew that I would have to. It's part of being qua-" Tali started, until Shepard cut her off.

"No, Tali. It wasn't because you knew what to expect. It wasn't because your people were forced to. You never grieved for your lost senses because you were strong. Stronger than I. When we were talking on the station before... after we embraced, I said that I 'finally knew what it felt like to wear the suit'." Shepard shook his head shamefully. "Being here, now _**actually**_ knowing... what I said is almost morbid. It was definitely wrong. I'm sorry."

His words again trailed off as an understanding built up between them. Tali was the first to break eye contact as she leaned down towards the ground; before returning to her full height, his discarded flower in hand. Three of her fingers slowly worked their way across it's petals, straightening and repairing as best she could. Satisfied, she took the broken stem and stuck it into the neckline of her shirt, the vibrant red petals offset by her soft, demure skin. "I've seen you do far too many unimaginable things to truly believe that I am stronger..." Shepard raised his hand to contest, but Tali lowered it with hers as she continued. "But I understand what your saying. As to what you said on the station, well, you wouldn't believe what people say. Your not the first, you won't be the last. You really can't make people understand, until they do."

Yet another silence followed as Tali watched Shepard's eyes work across her face. Perhaps he was looking for a response, a way in which to take back what he had said despite her acceptance of it. In the end though, he opted to remain quiet. Tali again had to continue the conversation, which she decided to bank abruptly towards her growing curiosity. "Now, you drove us out here... what did you want to do, exactly?"

Shepard took a moment to respond, almost as if he was coming out of a trance. The voice that responded finally sounded like the man she had know for the past six years. "I just planned on stopping here, because of all the flowers, before flying over to the nearby city your people have built. Why?"

"Instead of flying... is that city close enough that we can... walk?" Tali asked, her heels slowly lifting off the ground as she thought of the prospect.

Shepard turned towards the shuttle, his hand moving to stroke his chin as he occasionally did. His helmet's facemask prevented this however, and Tali suppressed a giggle as he let his hand fall, before turning his gaze back to her. "I guess so. The shuttle has a link to the space station. They can just remotely operate it back to the station, or to the city, or whatever. Let me send them a message." The human disappeared from view as he entered the small craft, before returning moments later, the message sent.

With their commitments resolved, the pair started working their way across the field. Shepard led, as he knew the way in which they had to travel, but Tali was frequently ahead, or trailing behind, as she explored Rannoch's countryside. For Tali, the walk was a time to experience the world, as she split off to touch a tree, to explore a small stream or to smell another flower. Occasionally she would wander back to Shepard, an interesting rock or an intricately textured leaf in her hand, to show him. It seemed impossible to her, as she stood upon a tree stump with another 'prized' rock in hand, that most of the universe lived like this all the time. The amount of sensory input coming in was almost overwhelming to her. The young quarian found herself thankful that she had prepared with such intensive study of Rannoch's environment, as she constantly found herself comparing her memorized information with the world that stretched in front of her.

The planet was, as Legion had alluded to years prior, more arid than Earth. This was primarily due to the fact that Rannoch had but a single ocean, although it was quite large. This single mass of water created large swathes of what could effectively be called "rainforests" along the coasts, which were all the more vibrant without sentient pollution and predation for three hundred years. But this single ocean also had ill effects, as the deep interior of the planet, nearly half of the western hemisphere, was little more than a series of steppes and desert wastelands, rife with mineral resources, but lacking the means to naturally support most life. Back before the Morning War the quarians had developed a series of mining settlements within this massive desert, but large scale development had never taken place. On Earth such a desert frontier would have seen much attention, but on Rannoch, the quarians simply hadn't seen the need. Because between the rainforests and the deserts lay a vast expanse of land, wildly fertile, where 90% of the prewar population had resided.

As the quarian people returned from their long exile this was where they had first built settlements, alongside the skeletons of cities long dead. And it was in this expanse of land, upon both banks of a gently flowing river, that the city of Tash'Koreh had been found. With only 17 million quarians Rannoch had room to spare, and as such most cities proved to be little more than small settlements, which Tash'Koreh was. Its population was just under a thousand people, although its small spaceport generated substantial traffic as it operated as the region's main port.

Eventually Tali rejoined Shepard as they approached the city. Unlike other races, Quarians naturally tended to wall in their settlements, despite the fact that Rannoch lacked any large predators (besides the quarians themselves). This was a new development in quarian architecture, and many conjectured that this had come about as a way in which to mimic the restricted feeling their ships and suits had until so recently presented.

As such, the cross-species couple were forced to join a small line waiting to enter through the main gate. When Shepard saw each member of the line being searched, the question that followed was obvious: "Tali? Why are they searching people?"

The young quarian beside him shrugged, a slight look of concern building on her face. "I-I don't know. I tried to keep up on what has been going on down here, planetside, but I don't recall hearing of this."

Shepard seemed ready to respond, but he quieted as they approached the gate itself. A young male quarian, rifle in hand, blocked their access. His dress was typical of his gender, a simple affair consisting of a pair of red pants matched with a light red shirt, although the word "City Defense" in Khelish adorning the patches on his sleeves marked his as a soldier. Atop his head he wore a cloth wrap, revealing only his eyes. As Shepard looked around, he noticed that Tali seemed to be the only one in line without some sort of veil or hood.

"What do we have here?" The red-clad quarian growled, his rifle coming up as he leveled it at Shepard. "Raise those hands slowly, _alien_."

Shepard, taken aback by this hostile greeting, raised his hands as prompted. Tali, however, moved to place herself between the male quarian and her human consort. "Just what in Keelah's name are you doing!" She spat, her hands balling into fists.

The red-clad quarian took a step back before pounding on a door built into the city's wall. Two more male quarians emerged quickly, each wearing "City Defense" patches, pistols drawn. With overwhelming firepower assured, the red quarian again advanced on Tali, his voice dripping with animosity. "You really think you can just bring in this alien? After all his kind have done to our town? I'm under orders to arrest any and all aliens, and any quarians who are helping them." The quarian beckoned to the wall opposite Tali and Shepard. "Up against the wall, _veil-less_, alien. You've really got to try something new..."

Tali had been arrested before, it came with being a quarian who traveled frequently. But she hadn't expected to be profiled by her own people, or for a fellow quarian to use the term 'veil-less' as some sort of slur. She knew few quarians chose to go without a veil, but her people had always been an understanding society. _ What had changed?_ Her confusion condensed quickly into anger. Indignation and rage filled her voice as she stuck a belligerent finger towards the male opposite her. "What is your name? I will report you to your superiors, you bosh'tet! You have no right to arrest me!"

The red clothed quarian laughed. "My name is Captain Ran'Warren vas Realtok," he pointed to his shirt's patch. "Tash'Koreh City Defense. You can tell 'em whatever you want. We've had enough trouble with pirating aliens trying to steal our supplies. The reports say unveiled quarians are helping them. And now you two show up? Too convenient..." He laughed again, but this time he simultaneously switched the safety off of his rifle. "Now, I will not ask again. Up against the wall, hands behind your back."

Tali was ready to fight, her anger rising as her self-preservation instincts fell. She knew that she was unarmed, she knew that the quarians opposite didn't share that handicap, but that didn't matter to her. She had bled for her people, for the galaxy. Never had Tali thought that her repayment for such sacrifices would come in the form of an assault rifle to the chest. Just as she shifted her weight, ready to strike, a cool suited hand upon her shoulder drew her away from the brink. Looking back, she locked eyes with Shepard, his calm gaze steeling her nerves. "We'll do as he says." The human said quietly. "I'm sure we can get sorted out soon."

Ran'Warren nodded his head slowly as Tali gradually uncurled her clenched fists, the wisdom in Shepard's words apparent. They were unarmed after all, and she hadn't come to Rannoch just to be shot over a misunderstanding. Warren again motioned towards the wall opposite, and Tali reluctantly moved out of the small line to stand with her face against the grey concrete. As Shepard took his position next to her, the two pistol-toting quarians moved up behind them, restraints in hand.

Quarian physiology, and the marks their suits had made upon them, had always required innovation in order to adapt. This had become even more apparent as the quarian people left their envirosuits on Rannoch, with personal restraints being one such area in which an ingenious invention had been needed. As Quarian envirosuits featured an intravenous needle permanently emplaced in each wrist, the frequent reinsertion of this needle left Tali's people with forearms forever sore. The standard pair of handcuffs that the galaxy abroad used to restrain individuals worked well enough on quarians, but the constant chafing on their wrists routinely caused them pain. As such, the Admiralty Board had insisted that a new form of handcuff be invented.

This new form, dubbed an "armbinder", still had links around the wrists, but they were padded and not especially tight. To make up for this loss of restraint integrity, a steel bar ran up from the cuffs to link to a second pair of circular restraints that wrapped around the arm, just above the elbow. These upper cuffs were very tight, thus keeping them in place even if the individual bound straightened their elbows completely.

This double set of cuffs took only a second longer to affix, but Tali could feel her anger return as they clicked into place upon her arms. She had little time to seethe, however, as she was soon jerked around to face Ran'Warren. Despite his covered face, she could see the smile in his eyes.

"We are going to take a little walk, over to district headquarters." He said, gesturing vaguely with his rifle towards the center of the town. "Maybe a night or two in holding will help your memory. Then you can tell us where your little group has been stashing our property."

Tali had never been one to rise to such a petty attempt to make her angry, but she couldn't help herself this time. The smile on his face, the insolent tone of his voice; she just didn't have another choice, of that she was certain. Tali had hoped that she could get this sorted out without publicly revealing her name. _So much for her that._

"Do you really want to arrest Commander Shepard and Tali'Zorah?" She asked, a threatening inflection becoming apparent in her voice as she continued. "I would hate for you to earn a demotion."

Tali expected a widening of Warren's eyes, a surprised look as he stumbled over an apology. What she got was another laugh. "Well, well!" He replied, turning towards his pistol-armed compatriots. "Did you boys see the Normandy land over in the field? It must be smaller than the vids make it out to be!"

The two quarian police behind him remained stoically silent, cutting off a second round of laughter from Warren. He turned on them. "You guys really have to develop some humor. Fine." He pointed to the one on the left. "Stay here, mind the gate. We'll take these two over to holding."

The quarian he addressed saluted before returning his sidearm to his holster. Satisfied that the man was doing as told, Warren returned his gaze to Tali and Shepard. "Lets go."

"Y-You don't believe me?" Tali stammered, confusion wracking her mind.

Warren's eyes rolled, although their glowing nature made the gesture almost unnoticeable. Shifting his assault rifle so that it crossed his chest, he used the weapon to push Tali's back against the wall. The movement caused a tremendous pain in her arms, as their bound nature forced them into an unnatural position. "Kinda hard to tell." Warren started, his eyes narrowing. "I know Tali'Zorah. Seen the vids, the pictures. But she always had her suit on. You don't, making it kind of hard to te-"

"What about my skirt? The design, I mean..." Tali interrupted, shifting her hips in order to display the purple swirls that adorned the garment "Same as my suit."

"Same as Tali's suit, yes. Not that it means much, with the design becoming so popular. Everyone wants to look like a hero." Warren replied, as he stepped back. Tali bit down hard on a thankful sigh, intent on keeping the pain that ran through her arms secret. "Now, come on, let's take a walk." The red clad quarian commanded.

Tali, stubborn as always, wouldn't let the subject rest. "What about Shepard, then? You know what he looks like."

The male quarian opposite her ground his teeth, but he answered her inquiry by tapping Shepard's visor. "Not like I can really see his face, huh?" He quickly raised his right hand, omnitool engaged, in order to cut off Tali's next question. "And no, I can't just depolarize it." He tapped a couple keys, a readout displaying itself on his screen.

Aboard the Migrant Fleet, law enforcement had always been careful in how they used their weapons. A single misplaced round could compromise the integrity of a craft, a tragedy no quarian wanted to partake in. Yet it was also occasionally necessary to take a quarian crew member into custody via force, if only to preserve the safety of others. It was for these situations that the Admiralty Board had decreed that all quarian envirosuits be built with a back door into their vital functions only available to law enforcement personnel using a specialized algorithm. Using this method, a police officer could sedate a belligerent with their own suit, allowing a conflict-less arrest.

So it was with this 'back door' method that Warren breached Shepard's biometrics, allowing him almost complete access. Turing his omnitool towards Tali, Warren showed her the only portion of Shepard's suit that remained outside his control.

"I really can't turn off the polarization. Privacy laws from our time aboard the Fleet." Warren remarked, scrolling slowly through the list. Suddenly he stopped, a smirk playing across his face. "But I do find it interesting that this human's suit has a complete NSA."

The mention of a 'NSA' caused a smattering of gasps coupled with a few giggles to emerge from the small line of regular quarians who had been watching the arrest take place. Shepard, unsure of what an 'NSA' was, turned to Tali. Her face was flushed, an embarrassed look contorting her features. This embarrassment quickly turned again to anger, however, as Tali glared at Warren. "That's private." She snarled.

"Right." Warren said, a shrug accompanying his doubtful tone. "Doesn't really change the facts. I can't ascertain your identity without a DNA test. I can't do that here. I can't check this human's ID visually without allowing him access to his omnitool in order to depolarize his mask, which I definitely won't be doing. It's obvious he's the muscle in this relationship. So we are going to head down to holding. _**Now.**_" The emphasis he applied to the last word made it clear that he would brook no argument, and Tali let him get away with it. She could only hope that Shepard was right, that this entire situation was a mistake that would soon be cleared up. The young quarian also didn't want Shepard's NSA to come up again. Besides the embarrassment, she wanted that to remain a surprise.

As such, when Warren gestured for her to move ahead of him, she complied as he placed a hand on the bar between the twin set of cuffs that adorned her arms. The accompanying pistol-armed guard did the same with Shepard's restraints.

Normally the walk through Tash'Koreh would have been incredibly interesting to Tali. Quarian architecture had, like their fashion, stagnated aboard the Migrant Fleet. Unlike their choice in clothes, however, the quarian people had embraced their three hundred year old design aesthetics with zeal as they returned to their homeworld. Tali had seen pictures of Rannoch, before the Morning War. Her time on Haestrom had shown her the decrepit remains of what her people had once built. But it was only now, walking through the small town, that she could see the extravagance with which her people adorned their homes.

The ruins on Haestrom had showcased the stone components that all quarians tried to utilize when building a structure. Even with the wood and metal eroded or repurposed, the stone walls had stood as a testament to the strength quarian culture had once held. It was now, as it had been, seen as a display of personal wealth and sophistication to have a portion of your home carved from pure stone. The richest quarians before the Morning War had lived in homes almost completely made of such valuable masonry, although even the most impoverished families had emulated the design principle by placing a small stone obelisk somewhere in their abode.

Today, with many buildings necessarily being simple prefabricated structures, most families made due with small obelisks like their poverty-stricken ancestors had once done. Yet even this small embellishments could be taken in a thousand different artistic directions. Had Tali been paying attention, she would have seen a wide assortment of such obelisks, inscribed with the names of those who lived in each house.

But Tali just couldn't focus on the architecture, for it was the people they passed that caused her discomfort. During her twenty plus years aboard the Migrant Fleet she had never seen another quarian arrested. She could understand how a quarian and human being led through town, bound arms marking them as prisoners, could cause other quarians to gawk. That was only normal. The problem for Tali arose from the comments her fellow quarians were making.

_Veil-less_. The word came up a lot. It took Tali only a few minutes to realize that she was the only quarian she had seen without a veil. _ Surely it can't be that uncommon_, her mind rationalized even as the evidence proved her wrong. Intermingled with Veil-less, said in such a way that in came off as a slur, were a number of derogatory terms, mostly aimed towards her: Harlot. Tramp. Whore. Thief. Compared to the others, thief seemed an odd term with which to label her, but Tali found it hurt the most. The sheer irony of her own people calling her a word that had for so long labeled the quarian people as a whole nearly brought her to tears.

Shepard seemed to sense this sadness well within her, as he moved to walk alongside her. "Don't listen to them." The human said quietly, rubbing his shoulder against hers, as it was the only comforting gesture he could make. "Something is going on. We'll find out why the town hates quarians without a veil. I promise."

Tali began to respond, but Ran'Warren wrenched on her restraints, pulling the couple apart. "We're almost there. Quiet now."

Crossing over the bridge that spanned the river splitting Tash'Koreh, their destination became obvious. Upon the bank of the river sat a building, its Khelish inscribed sign marking it as the Town Hall. Showing his credentials at the door, Ran'Warren pushed Tali through the building's gateway, leading them towards a staircase alongside the back wall. Passing by a set of offices built into the building's exterior wall, Tali listened in on the conversations that spilled out from each doorway. The first room contained two male quarians arguing over vacation time; the second held a female quarian speaking into a comm system, the third... _was that..._

With a yelp, Tali twisted her back, breaking Warren's hold on her armbinder. Moving quickly even as Ran recovered, the young quarian burst into the third room on her left, a single name erupting from her mouth:

"_**Han'Gerrel!**_"

The entrance of a bound, sprinting prisoner into an office often ends an ongoing conversation, as it did for the aging quarian behind a massive wooden desk. The elder quarian looked up from his computer, his hand instinctively going into one of the drawers on his desk. That hand quickly emerged with a pistol, even as Tali slid to a stop across from him. Her mouth opened, but before a word could come out, Tali was thrown forward, her head coming down hard upon the desk.

Ran'Warren had slammed into her back, forcing her bound arms into another painfully unnatural position as she toppled forward. "I-I'm sorry, sir, feisty little bitc-"

The aging quarian stopped him with a wave of his hand, as he placed the pistol back into his drawer. "There is no need for such a label, Captain. Who is this?" He rumbled, a raised eyebrow marking his interest.

Tali, struggling to find a more comfortable position, jumped into the conversation. "My name's-"

"Tali?" Han'Gerrel interjected, finishing her sentence. "Is that you?"

"Oh, sweet Keelah! Yes!" Tali replied, relief drifting into her voice. She hadn't been sure Han'Gerrel would recognize her without her suit. She had hoped that he would recognize her voice, as she had recognized his from the hallway. Still held down as she was, Tali had to shift her shoulders in order to look Han in the eyes. It was only then that she noticed that he too wore a cloth cloak, disguising most of face.

Watching her squirm under his subordinate's weight, Han quickly ordered Warren off of her. The young male, fear leaking into his voice, started apologizing, but Gerrel worked his way around his desk, taking Warren over to the room's corner. Their quick, sharp conversation was heated, but Gerrel obviously came out on top. When the elder quarian pointed angrily towards the door, Warren took the opportunity to leave, nearly knocking over Shepard in his haste to exit. Seeing the suited human enter the room, Han'Gerrel subsequently ordered Warren's accompanying guard to leave as well.

"I... I..." Tali said, stunned at the speed of Warren's exit.

"Let me get this off of you," Gerrel broke in, ignoring her confusion as he unlocked Tali's armbinder. Moving over to Shepard he repeated the action before retaking his seat behind the desk, as he motioned Tali and Shepard into matching seats across from him. Shaking his head, Gerrel sighed. "I must apologize for the... enthusiasm Warren displayed."

"He was an ass." Shepard replied, finally allowing his disgust to come to the surface. "And he's a Captain of the Guard?"

"Would you believe he's the best I can get right now? Fresh off of his pilgrimage, and I had to name him Captain. There just isn't anyone left."

"Why?" Tali ventured, rubbing her wrists slowly. The padded lower restraints had helped, but they still left her a bit sore.

"I'm going to have to start from the beginning to explain that, kid." The informal title brought a smile to Tali's face as Gerrel continued. "I have a video conference with the Admiralty Board soon, dammit, so I'll try to make it short. But it's naturally a long story. You may have noticed people giving you harsh looks, as you don't have a veil."

"They attached insults too. Whore. Thief. Veil-less."

"Yes..." Gerrel replied, obviously uncomfortable. "When we first landed on Rannoch, I was put in charge of establishing this spaceport. Technically, I'm Governor of this sector. Anyway, I think I've done pretty well over the last two years. Hell, things were going very well until about a month ago, when our monitoring stations starting picking up numerous unauthorized landings not far from town. I sent patrols, but they never found anything. Yet soon after that we started losing shipments sent down from the orbiting stations. It started small, a couple of boxes of building supplies, some food. But it kept getting worse, with eventually entire shuttle-loads disappearing."

Tali, amazed that she had not heard of this development, asked the obvious question. "What was happening?"

"Illegal Trade." Gerrel responded, placing his heads atop his desk. "You, and Shepard, both know that our economy aboard the Fleet was always communal. No one ever owned anything, except our suits." Both he and Tali shifted uncomfortably as they remembered that fact. It had been almost poetically tragic that the one thing every quarian owned happened to be that which they hated most, a glorified prison. "We have kept this tradition alive, here on Rannoch. Food, housing, energy... all are free to any citizen willing to work where they are best suited. But aliens, no offense Shepard, starting making contact with some of our people. A system, apparently, was set up where a quarian could trade goods destined for communal distribution. In return, these black market dealers would give them luxury items."

"How... how could a quarian do this?" Tali asked, her own upbringing coming to her mind. Aboard the Fleet it was instilled in every quarian that the Fleet came first. On Rannoch, the Town had simply replaced the Fleet. She just couldn't bring herself to believe that a fellow quarian could trade away such desperately needed supplies... for the acquisition of personal items.

"You grew up on the Fleet Tali. You knew on your pilgrimage that you would be coming back to the Fleet. You knew that the Fleet sorely needed every spare part, every shuttle-load of supplies. A lot of the quarians who've entered into this trade didn't share that upbringing. Those who leave on pilgrimage now know that they are coming back to Rannoch, to a life generally without a suit. So when they see what the galaxy has to offer, when they observe what unsuited life can deliver, they look for how they can get that when they return here."

It was Shepard's turn to ask a question. "Your still sending young quarians on pilgrimage?"

Both Tali and Han'Gerrel nodded, although it was Gerrel who replied. "Yes. We still need supplies in order to expand, making the gifts brought back even more important. But it is getting hard. Some are arguing that sending young quarians on pilgrimage is hurting our growth. That they would be better used here, helping us build."

"You make it sound like there is a second argument for not sending them." Tali prompted.

"Yes." Han said, shifting in his chair so that the sun coming through the window behind him fell upon his grey veil. "Some are saying that its almost a punishment. That sending them out in envirosuits, when they could be adapting to life here, is harsh."

"That is hard to counter." Shepard replied.

"Yeah. Especially when you think of what the situation will be like in twenty years. When quarians born on Rannoch will reach the age in which they would leave on pilgrimage. Living as a child upon this planet should quicken their adaption time. It should strengthen their immune systems to the point that they can actually be outside of the protective bubbles we use as children."

Tali, who had grown quite still as Gerrel spoke of the possibilities quarian children now had, finally spoke. "Will... will they even need to wear an envirosuit?"

Gerrel shrugged. "We don't know, not yet, but you hit the problem upon the head. What if they don't? Can we really force them into one, just so they can be sent out abroad?"

The question hung in the air as Tali processed the information. She had always known that her adaption to Rannoch would take a long time. But to think that the next generation might progress far enough that they wouldn't even need envirosuits on Rannoch? The thought was almost chilling, as she realized how far the quarian people had come.

Gerrel, nodding slowly as he obviously thought along the same lines, checked his desktop clock before continuing abruptly. "I am running short of time, and I think we got a bit off topic. Back to the black marketers..." He said, rearranging the papers thrown across his desk into rough piles, "...they are the ones who have attached a stigma to going without a veil. We've actually found it easier to identify people by their veils, as everyone modifies them in some way. In comparison, our people's faces have been hidden for so long we don't have a database to identify people, or wanted criminals for that matter, by facial recognition."

"So... these black marketing quarians have been concealing their identities by _purposefully_ exposing their faces?" Shepard asked, his silver eyes widening at the realization.

"Exactly. Exactly. Many quarians have taken to wearing a veil in public now, to remove themselves from persecution."

Shepard, seemingly satisfied with the explanation, fired off a followup question: "But how does that explain your inexperienced guards?"

"I've, just this past week, sent out a number of patrols deep into the surrounding countryside, trying to catch these black marketers in the act. Rannoch has space, and Rannoch has resources. Both of which we lacked on the Fleet. But we just don't have the population, yet, to exploit it. Which means we are always short on manpower. Drawing off that many good men and women has severely depleted my officer core. Thankfully, even a bosh'tet just off of his pilgrimage can man a gate. Warren may be an insubordinate bugger, but he's good enough to watch the gate. Usually."

A small chime originating from Gerrel's clock accompanied the conclusion of his short narrative, causing the aging Admiral to shake his head in an angry fashion. "And that is supposed to remind me that I have that Admiralty meeting. Damn, those thing are boring."

Seeing the conversation winding down, Shepard was the first to stand, as he reached a suited hand across the desk, which Gerrel pumped with enthusiastic vigor. "Thank you for clearing everything up for us." The human said.

Gerrel, moving to shake Tali's hand as he responded, used his free hand to motion to the door. "My pleasure Shepard, Tali. Your officially free to go, although I've seen what you two can do. It's not like we really could have held you if you resisted." The remark brought about a round of laughter, as Gerrel walked them the short distance to his door.

"Can I ask a last question?" Tali said, as they neared the doorway. Seeing Gerrel give her an 'of course' gesture, she continued. "We've been out most of the day. Can you recommend somewhere to get something to eat?"

His veil withheld most of his facial response, but Tali could see a smile play on his eyes. "Of course. The town's Grand Common, just across the street, contains our cafeteria." Clapping his hands together, the Admiral chuckled. "Hell, tell them to call me so you can have my personal booth. I'll get to step out of that damned Admiralty Meeting for a minute, and you two can eat in private!"

Food must have sounded especially good to Shepard, as the human vigorously thanked Gerrel. Tali wasn't sure that he understood that his lunch would consist of a tube of paste, but she didn't think it was a good time to bring it up. Finishing their goodbyes, Tali and Shepard turned to leave Gerrel's office.

But before they could take a step, Gerrel had grabbed onto Tali's arm, making sure to avoid her wrists. "Oh my, I almost forgot." He murmured, turning his attention to a pile of boxes arranged to the left of the door. A few moments of searching saw Gerrel turn back to the cross-species couple, a wad of purple fabric in his hand. Unfurling the garment slowly, Tali found herself looking at a veil not unlike the one she had worn for so long. Mimicking her old veil's purple swirls perfectly, the only difference arose from a swathe of fabric designed to cover most of the wearer's face, leaving only the eyes visible.

"Is that... my..." Tali began, her mind trying to understand why Gerrel would have a modified version of her veil in his office.

"Oh, no!" Gerrel replied, obviously understanding what Tali was implying. "This is a replica, one of a couple hundred that have come through this spaceport. Your a hero Tali. That makes you a fashion icon, or so the fabric manufactures have told me." He shrugged, making it clear that fashion was not an area he was strong in. "Either way, if you want, you can have it. At least then it will stop the staring, and you won't get arrested again."

Tenderly taking the purple fabric from Gerrel, as the Admiral returned to his desk with a short wave, Tali found herself conflicted. She had always hated her suit. To put this veil on now, to bend to the misconceptions her own people had so wrongly placed on the 'veil-less' went against her very nature. Half her mind wanted to throw the veil upon the ground, to spit on the prejudice it represented.

A suited hand fell upon her shoulder then, bringing Tali back to Gerrel's office, out of her thoughts. Meeting Shepard's artificial gaze, Tali recognized what she had to do. Shepard had sacrificed so much to see this day happen, to see his quarian companion walk upon her homeworld unsuited. She didn't want to wear the veil, but Tali understood the sacrifice it represented. Without it, they would be hounded throughout town. Shepard had done so much to make her happy. She couldn't, she wouldn't, go without the veil, thus ruining a day that was supposed to be filled with joy.

Shifting the fabric between her six fingers, Tali placed the garment upon her head. It fit her well, mimicking her old veil thoroughly. Despite her reservations, she could at least admit that the veil was comfortable to wear, it's silken fabric light and airy.

"Ready to go?" Shepard asked, his eyes playing across her shrouded face.

"Yes." Tali responded, but she hesitated in the doorway before turning back to look at Gerrel, who was setting up a conference link on his computer. Her voice brought his gaze up to meet hers. "Thank you, Han."

Gerrel nodded, his shrug signifying that he was happy just to help. But that shrug brought forth a quick laugh, as the Admiral called across the room one more time. "Ran'Warren mentioned Shepard has a full NSA." He laughed again. "Have fun with that, kid!"

Tali, her cheeks burning, moved to leave the Town Hall quickly, hoping none of the other quarians had heard Gerrel's remark. But that was only half the problem. As soon as the couple left the building, Shepard began pestering her with questions. Tali remained quiet, thankful that her veil hid the crimson hue her cheeks had taken on. Knowing that she could only ignore Shepard's questioning for so long, she aimed straight for the cafeteria, hoping the prospect of food would quiet her human consort.

Tali was tempted to kick Shepard in the shins, as she occasionally did when he was being especially annoying. Looking down, the young quarian saw such an attack was impossible, as Shepard's suit was equipped with quarian-standard shinguards. Grinding her teeth slowly, Tali shook her head as Shepard launched into another round of interrogation regarding his suit's NSA. She wanted to keep them a surprise. She didn't want other quarians hearing his incessant questioning. _She really wanted to kick him_. Looking once more at Shepard's guarded shins, Tali shook her head, murmuring a single sentence.

_"Damn that suit..."_

_

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_**Author's Note: First off, once again, please review. All feedback is appreciated. Really, really appreciated. Now, for those who have been following this series, you may notice that I have gone back and changed some of the "Author's Note"s the accompanied the other Chapters. This is to clear up exactly how long this story will be, as I have finally decided. It will officially stretch for one more full chapter, along with an epilogue. I promise to get those out faster than these last two Chapters. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it... and I hope I got you thinking as to what Shepard's 'NSA' might be...**


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